Dreams Can Come True
Remember when you were a little girl, dreaming of growing up to become a princess who lived in a beautiful castle? There were the ball gowns, the diamond tiaras, the knights in shining armor… Or, perhaps your dreams took you on tours as the world’s most in-demand entertainer, standing on a stage before throngs of fans shouting your name, asking for just one more encore. Has domestic violence robbed you of your dreams?
I can reassure you, that’s an all too familiar place for me, as well. I have most certainly “been there, done that.” As a little girl I used to sit in my bedroom at my maple corner-desk, stagger books to form a make-believe typewriter, and sit for hours working on the next “Gone with the Wind.” I so wanted to be a mix between Scarlett O’Hara and Melanie Hamilton, feisty and fancy, yet kind and gentle. And I was holding out for a cross between Ashley Wilkes and Rhett Butler—a chivalrous southern gentleman with an adventurous, yet bawdy side, as well.
Years later, words like “stupid, ignorant…” were being screamed in my face, and I was reassured nobody would ever love me. I was beaten down verbally about as low as a snake’s belly in the bottom of a grave. The saddest part is that I came to believe it all. Dreams were fantasies, and they did not come true.
But then came that day—the one when I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel of dismal darkness not as a train, but as God’s beacon of hope, lighting my path to freedom and restoration. And I ran into the light, barreling out of the oppression and abuse. My faith began to grow and fan the flickering flame of dreams renewed. I finally realized I had choices. It was my choice to get out. Nobody else could make that choice for me, nor did they have the right to make it. It was my decision, and I went with it. I wanted my dreams back.
It may never be the next “Gone with the Wind,” but ORANGE BLOSSOM WISHES was published in 2008, and I am working on my second book now. I can not attest as to whether the whole Scarlett/Melanie combination has come to pass, but I now have a golden band on my left hand, and the fellow who put it there? Well, let’s just say Ashley and Rhett are mine!