“what happens to a dream deferred?

does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
or fester like a sore–
and then run?
does it stink like rotten meat?
or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

or does it explode?”

(langston hughes)

 

i could still show you the journals. 

pages and pages and pages of songs and motions.  crafts and games. prizes and awards. 

all the creative genius packed into my twelve-year-old brain is just what was needed to run a smashing summer camp.  i just knew it..

add to that the fact that i was the perfect age to not only hop on, but pilot the babysitters club bandwagon of the mid-90’s.   when the movie, which was based on the hit book series, came out and featured the group of thirteen-year-olds running a day camp in one of the girls’ yards, i flipped.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ18ruz7hCE&w=560&h=315]

this was my destiny.  it had to be.  i could feel it in the marrow of my bones.

and i wrote and planned and monopolized pages of my journals for years with this dream.

clearly though, adolescents should not be allowed to run summer camps in their backyard.  no matter how well thought out and planned (which mine were) or whether their location is perfect (on the outskirts of the appalachian mountains, mine was).  

so as hughes observes, what happens to these deferred dreams?

i know many who dream, but few who live them out.

i know many who plan, but never follow through.

pinterest. 

enough said really.

what happens to these deferred dreams?    who do we allow to steal and kill and tell us we’re crazy?

i want to be the crazy one personally. 

what happens to a dream deferred…

it explodes.