Something Different

Hello reader,

I wanted to say a big thank you to every single person who has ever read anything I have ever written.

When I was much too young to know any better, after a necessary clarification on the difference between a librarian and an author, I told my parents that I was going to be a writer. That dream has run away from me more times than I can count. And I have chased it down relentlessly.

Here is the truth about dreams. They are so lovely to consider when you are younger. You can envisage them as fully and concretely as you would like. They can take on full and real shapes. And seem so tangible that you could touch them, nip and tuck aspects that don’t work and zoom in on ideas that do.

But then really slowly and really quickly at the same time, somehow, you get older. And you listen to more and more people because, for whatever reason, you start thinking that child you didn’t really know what she was talking about. And the dreams start to get fuzzy and intangible and so impossible you can only visit them at night. But if you are very lucky, like I am, your dreams are louder than your fears and your doubts.

Child me had expectations and visions for her life and it is way past time to acknowledge her and declare her to be wiser than her years.

It is way past time to thank her, for planting the seed and nurturing it so carefully and devotedly and being so proud of it, even in its infancy.

I would like to tell her, that the fact that she believed in me and in my dream and in my possibilities, meant the world and created the type of stubborn dream that hooks into a girl and refuses to let go, even when she lets go of it.

So next year, I promise her, and you, more writing and more believing.

Thank you for sticking with me,

Until next year,

Naliaka. O