What is Your Dream?

Hi. My name is Tamra and I’m a Dreamer.

<In unison> Hi Tamra.

No, you see, I’m an uber-dreamer—an idealist extraordinaire. An optimist! I see the world through rose-colored glasses and all that. My condition goes beyond the Dreamers Anonymous status. You know that whole “when-life-gives-you-lemons-make-lemonade” concept? Well, not only do I make lemonade, I make it pink (just because) and bottle the stuff and sell it with full conviction that I’ll be the next Donald Trump of lemonade. And (heaven forbid) if my lemon venture tanks, I’ll chalk it up to a learning experience that will somehow enhance my future endeavors.

For me, dreaming and optimism are synonymous. Not only is the glass half-full, it’s half-full of diet freaking Coke. What’s not optimistic and downright dreamy about that?!

I can’t help myself.

I have to look on the bright side of life. I have to see a positive and happy future for myself and those whom I love.

I have to be a dreamer.

It’s how I roll—me and Walt, that is.

Did I mention I just spent a day with my honey and kiddos at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida? I wasn’t in the park more than fifteen minutes when I heard the magic words of Mr. Disney flood through the intercom system and resonate in my soul…

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Pretty sure I bowed my Mickey ears at that very moment and said a resounding, AMEN! (I knew I liked this guy, and not just because of my love for beautiful singing princesses and talking animals).

Walt was a dreamer—an optimist.

So am I.

But too often I’m confronted with a different mentality—one that is the polar opposite of every fiber of my being.

“I can’t.”

“I’m afraid.”

“What if I fail?”

“Why bother?”

“It’s too much work.”

“I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

Now, to be honest, it’s not that I’ve never had one of these thoughts. I’m human. I have my moments of uncertainty and doubt. But at the end of the day, when I lay my head down, I have to dream (and folks, the dreaming I’m talking about happens before I fall asleep). I have to believe in myself and in my goals.

Because if I can’t believe in myself, who else will believe in me?

Dreams can come true. I’ve yet to fulfill so many of my dreams, but some have come to pass.

In my late twenties when I (only) had four kids (hee, hee) with the oldest just starting kindergarten, I had a dream of writing books for children…so I started writing.  I was fairly certain I’d be the next Dr. Seuss when I wrote the phonetic masterpiece, MAX THE CAT—a book for anyone desiring to master the short A vowel sound (Yup, I was teaching my kiddos to read). From there I composed OLLIE THE GOAT, and even illustrated my talking-animal magnum opus. I sent my “art” out into the world (Golden Books, if I remember correctly), and anxiously awaited the arrival of my publishing contract.

In the meantime I continued to write, and read, and write, and read about writing, and write some more. I took a correspondence course on writing for children and a college creative writing class. And I wrote, and wrote... Aside from my stellar annual Christmas newsletters (ask any relative), I wrote a breastfeeding newsletter for the county health department as part of my Lactation Specialist job, and even attempted to write a snail-mail parenting newsletter. This pre-internet idea tanked, but remember what I said about learning experiences?

Then we moved to Texas. By now I had five kids—can you say writing material? My work shifted to family-life pieces which I submitted to dozens of Southeast Texas and Houston area newspapers…and one editor wrote me back. Score! I had my first writing gig for the Fort Bend and Sugarland Sun Newspapers with my family life column, THE HOME FRONT. I was paid $20 a column and would surely be the next Erma Bombeck.

Over the next fifteen years my writing has evolved. One page at a time, I wrote my first young adult novel, which was published by a smaller regional publisher. I’ve since published eight novels for children and teens, most recently SHAYLA WITHERWOOD: A HALF-FAERIE TALE (my faerie “Harry Potter”) with this same publisher.

Am I the next Dr. Seuss or Erma Bombeck or dare I say, J.K. Rowling? Ummm…not so much. I actually hold down a fifty-hour-a-week, bakery manager job to pay my bills and feed my kids.

Am I still optimistic that someday I will make a living as a writer? Every day! Every. Single. Day.

Due to my work schedule and evolving family dynamics, at this phase of my life, my writing has shifted full-circle back to the family-life pieces and therefore, this blog. Oh, I still have stories to tell and novels in the works. But for now, this is what I’m driven to write. My muse is my family and life in general as a middle-aged mother of nine, and “newlywed” (of four years) to my first and forever love, Paco.

I am a dreamer, and my life is a dream.

How about you?

 

Tamra Torero is Wife to Paco, Momma to nine, Grandma of two, Blogger, Bakery Manager, author of Shayla Witherwood: A Half-Faerie Tale and co-author of a Christmas novel, The Lost Son with her son, Preston Norton. She prefers her lemonade pink, her Coke diet, and her dreams in Technicolor!