I Had a Dream

      

           I had a dream. I had a dream that I would be an athlete and a scholar. I had a dream that I would go to a school were I would not be judged by the lapses in my attention but by the content of my imagination. I had a dream, that one day I would rise up from my state as an obese catholic school child and show everyone my true potential.  

            For you to fully understand my dreams though, I have to go back a few years. This speech is supposed to be honest, and so even though this may be a little embarrassing, I have decided to tell you a bit about my childhood.

            I failed second grade. It was kind of a low point for me. As a kid I had this wandering mind that could never seem to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes, and even though I loved going to school everyday to see my friends, things that went on in the classroom had little importance to me. Numbers were just a jumble and I always believed that as long as you could sound a word out, the spelling was optional. I did not want to count to thirty by three’s, and I didn’t care how many apples Paul had. At the end of the year I had failed several classes was asked to repeat second grade, but my parents didn’t want me to fall behind. Third grade was even worse. I was far behind in all my school work, and constantly in trouble for not paying attention during church, so my parents decided to move me to the public school.

           This was the first of my failures. I remember how it embarrassing it was to fall behind my classmates, how uncomfortable it was to be pointed out as “different,” but mostly how disheartening it was to disappoint my parents, because they had expected me to flourish in that Catholic school, and I had come up short.

           But I had this dream to rise up out of my low state and become a success, and slowly I learned to harness my wandering mind and put it to use. By middle school I was a good student with decent grades and the pressures of school were temporarily lifted. But then I started playing sports.

           As some of you may know, I was not gifted with the coordination or grace that is required to play sports. In addition to my clumsiness, I was short for my age and rather overweight. I was not cut out to be an athlete. This should have been clear to my parents from early on, but they still insisted that I play basketball, do gymnastics, play softball, and my father even made me play flag football with the boys. Each of my attempts at athletics was more embarrassing than the last. I scored baskets for the wrong team and fell off the balancing beam more times than I can count. I got nailed in the face by softballs and footballs and soccer balls and gym floors. Again I had come up wildly short of everyone’s expectations.

           I persisted though, because I had a dream that I would be the kind of athlete my parents would be proud of. After trying my hand at many sports, I finally found my niche—two activities that require no coordination at all. I can run in a straight line for long periods of time and I have fast reflexes, so I found some success running cross country and playing goalie. As happy as I was to find something I was good at, I realized that each sport came with expectations; I could always do better than I had. Fifth place was good but first place is better. I had seven nice saves but I still let in that one goal. Reaching a new level of skill just meant that I’d have to work even harder to get to the next step.

           I was continuously scrambling to catch up but always a step behind. This trend carried into high school, where grades were more important and sports were more intense. My new dream was to carry a perfect GPA and grades became my obsession. And not only did I feel like I had to get good grades—I felt like I had to look and act a certain way. My dream was perfection. With each semester the pressure amplified and I had to try even harder to keep up my record and almost every school day came with at least one quiz or test. It felt like people were always trying to evaluate me—that no matter how hard I worked on something, there was always going to be someone there to tell me what I did wrong and what I still didn’t know. Living up to people’s expectations was exhausting.

            These dreams I had for myself turned into my downfalls. Don’t get me wrong, I made lots of friends and had plenty of fun during high school—but sometimes I feel like I missed out things because I was so worried about making everyone else happy. I wasted my summer mornings in the weight room lifting for soccer, and on Saturday mornings when I was supposed to be sleeping in, I spent my time pouring over calculus homework with Cassie Quirt in her basement.          

            High school will be over in a few days and I accomplished what I set out to do. I got my perfect grade point—but I’m having a hard time validating to myself that it was really worth it. If it was truly my dream, I should be ecstatic, but I think the problem was that it was never my dream, just what I dreamed I could be for everyone else. 

          So this is my message to my classmates: Don’t live up to your full potential. Once and a while, give up and don’t persevere. Sure you can reach for the starts, but sometimes isn’t it enough to just reach for the top of the fridge?        

    One of the wisest men in the world, Dumbledore, once said, “If you’re holding out for universal popularity, I’m afraid you will be waiting for a very long time.” Instead of trying to be the best, be the happiest, and instead of trying to make people happy with you, find the people who are just happy to be around you. 

            Next year we have a fresh start and I challenge everyone to just have some fun. Work hard at the things you are passionate about, but let some of that small stuff go. Challenge yourself to learn and grow, not because you have to, but because you want to.

            I had a dream. For now though, I chose not to have a dream, but to simply be a dreamer.