Dreams Crushed

4/29

In elementary school I always adored the librarians. First, it was Mrs. Sure, and then Mrs. Collins. To me, it seemed like they had the dream job. They were around books and children all day, which at that time, happened to be my two favorite things. I loved library time at school: sitting down on the carpet and listening to our librarian read her favorite children's book. I also enjoyed visiting the local library. I would fill my bag with as many books as allowed and go home and just pour over them, multiple times. I dreamed of being a librarian someday and I even went so far as to set up a library in my family's living room and pretend to be a librarian when my friends came over. I held this dream of mine in my heart for some time. Fourth grade was the year I revealed this dream out loud. For some reason, fourth grade seemed like a turning point for me and a very memorable year. It was the first year I started walking home from school and it was the year the space shuttle, The Challenger, exploded. It is all still very vivid to me. The most memorable event, though, was when the class shared their dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up. The typical answers were shared: teachers, firefighters, and policemen. My response, of course, was a librarian! And then the unexpected happened. The class laughed. At me. At my dream. The rest of the memory is kind of a blank, but what I do know is that day, that moment, crushed my dream forever. I buried that dream and never told anyone again and then went in a different direction. i did not make a huge swerve, but something where I could still work with books and children: a teacher. I'll always wonder: if I wouldn't have gotten that kind of response, would my path be different? Has there ever been a dream of yours that has been crushed?