Brick Walls

I was drop-kicked into yesterday morning by a bad dream. After tossing and turning for a bit, when it became irkfully apparent that I would not be falling back to sleep, it dawned on me that if I were to get out of bed that very moment I could expect to have roughly ONE hour to myself. ONE hour! I could network. I could blog uninterrupted. I could think deep thoughts. I could lounge on the toilet and read Better Homes & Gardens. High on life, I ripped off the covers and flung myself across the room and into the hallway.

On my way to my computer I noticed that Joe had opened his door and turned on his light in the middle of the night. Giggling at the rhyme of it all (remember, I was still high on life) I crept over to his room, turned off his light, and closed his door as gingerly as any human can hope to gingerly close a door. Not quite two seconds later Joe exploded into a highly vocal crying frenzy so fierce I expected to find him literally caught by the toe by a tiger.

Just then, my bowels churned and threatened to erupt, and left me with no choice other than to dash into the bathroom. After a few very unpleasant moments, I made my way back to Joe's room to save him from the tiger. My bowels churned again, and so it was back to the bathroom. (Bad chicken???!? Damn that chicken!) From the bathroom I heard Lily working herself up to a crying frenzy as well. Is it possible there were two toe-grabbing tigers? As I sat there on the toilet I almost began to cry myself. One uninterrupted hour had been so close I could almost taste it! Alas, it was not meant to be.

My bowels behaved long enough to allow me to make it to Lily and Joe's rooms, save them from those blasted tigers, and hoist them by the teardrops onto the living room rug. Bleary, I decided I was not ready to be entertaining and thus went searching for the remote. I pressed 8 for PBS only to be greeted with the Spanish version of "A Place of Our Own". I tried to explain to Joe that they were speaking a language called Spanish, and that we spoke English, but that someday hopefully he could speak both English and Spanish, but he just stared at me, his face devoid of any hint of future bilingual prowess.

I flicked the channel button up one notch and was greeted with some seminar footage. A man named Randy Pausch, may he rest in peace, was sharing childhood photos of himself at Disneyland. He went on to detail his efforts to secure a position as a Disneyland Imagineer after having obtained his PhD. He read to us from one of many rejection letters he received from The Land of Disney. He had, in fact, hit a brick wall.

And then he said it!

"The brick walls aren't built to keep you out. The brick walls are built to keep out the people who don't want it badly enough. They're built to keep other people out."

Wow. If only that notion had dawned upon me years ago! I've always been painfully apologetic of my existence in the world. As though my mere presence was an irritation to the people who really deserved to be existing. And loving. And laughing. And succeeding. Every now and then I'd poke my little chipmunk nose around the corner and give something a try. Expecting rejection, I was never surprised when I hit a brick wall. I was overstepping my bounds, after all. I would apologize to the brick wall and scurry back into the safety of the shadows that were meant to be my home.

It never occurred to me for one moment that brick walls were golden opportunities! If they were keeping me out, isn't it possible they were keeping other people out as well? That I could net myself an advantage simply by deciding not to be discouraged—to give it another try? And maybe even another? Dare I? Who do I think I am, anyway? In the past all this uppity thinking would have had me scuttling back under a rock. But not today. And not ever again. I've got brick walls to climb!