Of Following Your Dreams

Earlier this morning, I was doodling dozens of chameleons on ziplock bags in preparation of a coming toddler art session. It reminded me of a slightly-colder-than-usual morning several years ago in a car with my husband on the way to work. I was still in the corporate world at the time, but my heart was where I am right now. To cope with entering a world that didn't feel like home to my soul, I would either write poems or doodle in the mornings before arriving my workplace. That morning, I was doodling giraffes for some DIY Hari Raya packets I made. As we arrived the tall building that was our office, I had on my face what didn't quite look like a smile. "I wish I could continue drawing giraffes," I said to my husband. Each time I enter this 'zone' where I get fuelled up with a certain kind of joy from writing poetry, or simply from celebrating my imagination by creating any sort of art, I'd always have trouble leaving. And it felt the hardest to leave and to enter a world so different - the corporate world at that particular time, where we obviously didn't discuss nor draw googly-eyed giraffes. I find it quite hard to believe that today, I'm allowed to stay in this 'zone' and also call it my job. Alhamdulillah. I am so grateful to God, my husband and my family for allowing me to follow my dreams. How weird is it to dream of doodling giraffes all day when I could dream of climbing the corporate ladder? But dream anyway. Whether it's to become the next female president or to doodle chameleons on ziplock bags, dream anyway. Because your dreams make you, you. And no one else is capable of being 'you'.