Personal

A few years ago, I was told I was a dreamer and that being a dreamer was terrible. Why is it terrible? The comment came out because I always say that I want to win the lottery to fix my problems and do fun stuff in the future. My first thought was, who doesn’t say they want to win the lottery, and why is dreaming a bad thing? Many people dream because without dreamers, this country, hell, the world stage wouldn’t have succeeded, and we wouldn’t be the people we are today.

Dreams help people make a better life for themselves, and people who don’t dream of better things will never make their lot in life a better one. Dreamers are inventors, innovators, people who make things happen in this world! So why can’t I be one or you or the person sitting next to you be the dreamer of the next big thing, but it doesn’t have to be a thing for the masses; it could be dreaming of buying their first car or house, or that special toy they want or meeting the love of their lives or their first kiss.

People who think dreaming is stupid need to sit back and take stock of their lives, and they will see that they are dreamers. Yes, dreaming about winning the lottery could be a BIG pie in the sky dream, but it could also happen. I dream about many things; sure, some of them will never happen before I die, but you never grow; you never have something to look forward to in your life without dreams. Dreams bring about change for the good and the bad, but they make you change either way. Dreams will always be a good thing in my life, and I hope they are a good thing in yours.

Sit back and think about this and then of the things you have done in your life, and you might realize that before they happened, you dreamed just a little that they would happen, and you made them happen because you had a dream.

Dream big, dream small but keep dreaming because someday those dreams may just come true.

In closing, I leave you with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. :

“I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the process of cleaning out my house, I came across a shoe box full of old letters that I had received from friends and family, and it got me thinking about actually sitting down and writing a letter.

While I was growing up, I would stay at my grandparents for a lot of overnight visits.  The early riser that my grandfather was, he would go downstairs to either make fresh bread, do research or to sit at the kitchen table to write letters to the family and friends.  He almost always woke me up on his walk to the kitchen so I would sit on the stairs and watch him write his letters.  Depending on who he was writing too he might have had some research that was going to be used to make his point all laid out on the table around him. Or a pile of news clippings he was going to send with the letter, I was always fascinated with his letter writing, so much so that I use to love writing letters.

His habit of letter writing rubbed off on me, and as I grew up, I became an avid letter writer.  When I became a teenager and moved to Bath, my letter writing became more prevalent, I would write to my friends in Fallsington or girls who went to the lake for the summer or off to college, or to friends of the family and of course family. I enjoyed putting thoughts and questions down on paper; it made things more personal between who I was writing to.  Dropping the letter into the mailbox and then the anticipation building of getting a letter back with I hoped the answers to the questions I had asked and then finding out what was going on in the person’s life.

How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous.”

― Haruki Murakami

The anticipation of having to wait for the next letter over at least a ten-day period (delivery to, writing back, delivery from).  The personalization of holding the piece of paper(s) that always made letter writing fun, compared to writing an email today, which always seems so impersonal to me.

It’s the impersonalization in today’s world of instant gratification that has replaced the written letter with social media, instant messaging, Snap Chat, Twitter, and email.  All of which typed quickly and in most cases short and just 140 characters max.

Gone are the days of taking the time to find the perfect pen to put word to paper, going out and selecting the perfectly weighted and colored paper to write your correspondence. To put that special pen to the hand-picked paper is what makes the letter a personal, heartfelt conversation between the recipients.  Don’t think I am still writing letters because I’m not; I can’t think of the last time I have put pen to paper and written a letter to anyone myself.

In my life, I have been trying to get away from the instant gratification communications of today and moving back to putting pen to paper for those communications that I would like to grow and build between friends and family.  Getting that feeling of really talking with people in a form that is more personal and more caring and loving.

My call to you all is dust off those old address books, find a piece of paper and a pen and write a letter….most people have a real physical address, not just an email address.

Writing posts use to be pretty easy for me at the beginning of all this and looking back at those posts from about 2000 to 2012 I can see why..I never really said much in the way of substance, and my spelling and grammar were soooo bad, but in the past two or so years, it’s been tougher for me to write meaningful posts.  It’s not that I don’t have topics I want to write about, I have a huge list, and a few posts started, that I just can’t bring to a close, it’s just been hard for me to get my thoughts down on “paper”.  I don’t know if it’s because I am trying to be a better writer or because I get more distracted and less focused when I want to write or just not to have the will to write at all?

Getting distracted and not being focused is one of the issues when writing that happens and I know one thing I need to do is to find a better place and better way to write.  When I try to write in the living room with the television on I get caught up with what’s on and don’t write at all.  If I am at the Soul Full Cup, I am good till people start coming in to hang out and then I just put the computer away to chat and then seem to lose the will to pick up the writing again when everyone leaves.  I am also wondering if part of it is my work schedule now, working midnight to 9 am supposedly can mess up your rhythms and focus escpcially if you aren’t getting a good 6 to 8 hours sleep during the day.  Also with my job, working on the computer all the time, it’s tough for me to want to work on one to write on my non-work hours/days.

Writing about my family is one of the easiest kind of writing for me because it’s something I can pull right out of my head and memories and get it down on the page, but is this something other than my family want to read?  Same goes for the technical writings, and the reviews are these of any interest to anyone to read but me? It’s tough to know who is reading and what is being liked from my point of view.  Are people coming to my site at all or are they staying on Facebook and other social media sites and just clicking the Like button or skipping the writing altogether and scrolling by?  These questions also make writing difficult for me, because if no one is reading this stuff what’s the point.  I tell myself that I am not doing this to make money or to be famous (because I’m not),  I am doing this to have my life documented for future generations of my family to read and know about me and my part of the Bilancio family, but in the now, it’s for those of you who know me understand what’s going on and what I am doing in a fun way as well as imparting some knowledge to them.

Why did I write this and make a post out of it?  The take away from this post was to identify what my problems are with my writing and to get my mind back into a place that I hope will get a more even flow of posts posted and better writing.