you know i'm a dreamer, but my heart is of gold.

"A good writer writes well about what he knows.
A great writer writes even better about what he doesn’t."
-Alicia Law

It’s hard to say for sure, but it’s probable that my greatest wish in life is to be a writer. I should rephrase that, because I feel like I am already a writer. I want to be a published writer. It seems like I am constantly writing, every minute of every day. Aside from the two or three letters that I write daily, my mind is always filled with words. I’ve often found it fascinating how musicians are able to write songs. Sometimes I listen to a song and think, “how can someone possibly write these words?” And then I realize that musicians are probably constantly writing songs in their head, just as I am constantly writing stories in my head. In a way, my stories have saved me. Growing up, when someone was mean to me, or when, tragically, I had a crush on someone and they saw me as “just a friend” (ah, the woes of high school love), I would go home, get out a notebook, and write a story about it. The difference between the story I wrote and the real-life outcome of my experiences was that my stories always gave me a happy ending. I was able to write myself out of the reality that I lived in and create a world in which I was the hero, I was the winner, I was the cherished one. I know there are some out there who would question whether or not it is a good idea for a person to create alternate realities for themselves, but for me, it helped me deal with the experiences that I was having. It made not getting what I want just a bit easier.
As far back as I can remember I have been a dreamer. It is one of the things that I love most about myself, although at times it does make my reality harder to swallow. When I was five, I confessed to the entire graduating kindergarten class (and all their families) that I, Gabrielle Walz, wanted to be a mermaid when I grew up. Imagine my disappointment when I realized that my dream was never going to become a reality (that doesn’t mean that I didn’t slip a diving ring around my ankles in the pool and pretend that my legs were fins, because I did). In junior high, I believed very much in true love, and soul mates. One can only assume that I was heartbroken when the boy I thought I was going to marry was laughing about me behind my back. In high school, I became a bit more realistic about love, although I was still in the mindset that I would be married at 18 like my mother, and that I would have a daughter at age 20. As you can see, I’ve been setting myself up for disappointments for a long time now, not on purpose but mostly as a result of my own naive ness and genuine misunderstanding of how the world works.
I think it was around my 23rd year on this planet that I decided that marriage and motherhood may not come as quickly as I had hoped, if ever. It was also around that time that I decided I was going to be a writer. An event took place that completely turned my whole world upside down, and I remember sitting in my bed thinking, “I have to write this story”. It’s not so much that I felt like everyone needed to know what happened to me, but more so that I felt like I needed to know what happened to me. I needed to remember that I survived. It took me 23 years to realize that a mermaid is not really what I wanted to be when I grew up; I wanted to be a writer. Not as hard to achieve as a mermaid would be, but nearly as realistic.
Mermaid. Teacher. Actress. Mom. Swimmer. Talk show host. Hair stylist. Make-up artist. Mom. Wife. Wizard. Mom. Wife. Writer. From the age of five, I’ve changed my “what I want to be when I grow up” story multiple times, which has prompted me more than once to wonder if I am really ever going to be what I want to be when I “grow up”. Even more than that, it’s made me wonder if there’s a point to ever wanting to be anything. It’s been hard for me not to become a bit cold or callous towards things like love, dreams, and desires, particularly because I don’t know much about achieving them, I only have the experience of them being denied me. It’s made writing my story very difficult as of late, because I find myself not knowing which story to write, or if I should even be writing my own story right now. I feel panic and pressure because I realize I am no spring chicken, I am 25 and unmarried, practically a menace to society. There comes a time when I’ve got to just stop talking and start doing (if only it were that easy, right?). It was the quote at the top of this page that got me thinking that my story doesn’t have to be my personal story. Maybe what I need to do right now is write someone else’s story.
One of the most frustrating things to me is that I know I can do this, and the only thing that is stopping me is fear. I am afraid of not being good enough. It makes me wonder how I can still be worried about being good enough. I would have figured that I would be over that fear by now. I suppose the fear of being “good enough” for someone or something never really leaves us, and in that respect, we still have some growing up to do.
I’m adding something to the list of things I want to be when I grow up: “DREAMER”. Because when I look at that list as a dreamer, it doesn’t seem so impossible. There will always be a part of me that longs to breathe under water, or longs to take on the lives of others in front of a camera, or clean my room with the wave of a wand. I take comfort in knowing that even if those things aren’t possible in this world, I can create a world in which they are possible.
Heaven help me if I am ever quoting Motley Crue in my life, but the lyrics to their song “Home Sweet Home” are actually quite good. “You know I’m a dreamer/But my heart is of gold/You know that I’ve seen/Too many romantic dreams/Up in lights, falling off the silver screen/My heart is like an open book/For the whole world to read/Sometimes nothing keeps me together at the seams/I’m on my way/Just set me free/I’m on my way/Home sweet home”