Lesson #11

Sometimes it can be hard to tell where my life ends, and my imagination begins. Its like the dreams my brain creates can feel just as real as reality itself. It's like the comparison of diamonds to rhinestones; they both look very similar, but in the end one is priceless, and the other is barely worth a price. Its not to say that I feel like life is barely worth a price, but dreams are diamonds. The reality in our heads is flawless-- packed with fame, fortune, and love. Then life comes back into play... I wake up every morning from a world where I was the queen, to go to school with 2000 other people who have just as much say in the world as I do. I always wondered why no amount of sleep ever seems to be enough, and I have come to the conclusion that I just prefer to live in my dreams. Being asleep means that I only have to view diamonds, and I can forget for a minute about the existence of rhinestones.

"There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gifts of disillusion."

Life to me feels like I was handed the gift of disillusion. Life is nothing like what I pictured it would be. With life comes pain, loss, heart break, fear, exhaustion, and failure. As a kid I entered this world like I had the ability to rule it, but life has taught me that I can't.  When I was little, I wanted to be a professional soccer player. But the world soon taught me that even when you work as hard as you can, it is not always enough. Practicing for hours a day isn't enough; cutting out junk food and only eating healthy isn't enough; running until I can barely walk isn't enough; kicking a soccer ball until the calluses on my feet begin to bleed isn't enough. For the work I put in, I do not receive awards-- instead I receive sprained ankles and countless bruises, followed by the doctors orders to take months off of the thing that I love the most. So the dreams I had turn to dust, and I find out the diamonds I thought I had are just rhinestones. I don't know that diamonds are really worth hoping for, because in the end maybe some of us just aren't meant to have diamonds. Maybe for some people rhinestones are more fitting. Though it is the hope to find diamonds that wakes me from my dream state every morning. So all I really have to hope is that I just haven't found my diamond yet.


Lesson #11: When life gives you a diamond, make sure it is real first.