Disappointment in Dreamland

Thank you for participating with me on this adventure! It’s not too late to answer my questions from my previous post. I don’t care if you’re six months late… I’d still love to read your answers!

(This post is part 2 of a story begun here. We left off with a little girl realizing her ultimate dream of playing Mary/singing a solo in the Christmas pageant at her church.)

When the pageant was complete, the little girl ran around as most six-year-olds do, while her mother socialized until they were one of the last few families there (they often were). She began to overhear her mother’s comments. Was it laughter? Amusement? More than that; these were comments which vaguely disguised the sort of excuses one makes when embarrassed. Apparently the mother was making light of the little girl’s solo, because the little girl had lost the melody in favor of some alto/harmony part that her voice created as she sang. The mother thought it amusing, and as all other amusing parts of the girl’s childhood, it became a choice tidbit of humor offered by her mother at dinner parties and church fellowship hours.

Possibly the little girl would have given up singing, but her mother read her a book. It was about a star who could not sing on key; whose voice was not very beautiful. But the star continues to sing and sing, because it knows, (and the book confirms at the end,) that God indeed created that star’s voice, and he loves to hear it sing. It brings him great pleasure.

The little girl still loved to act and sing, but no longer was quite so confident in her on-stage singing abilities. Singing to her precious Lord still made her feel so alive, but rarely did she sing solos on stage after that day. She participated in her Kindergarten play, and a couple other productions at church. She got to be an angel once, and a child in the Easter musical who got to go sit on Jesus’ lap as he welcomed the little children to come unto him.

At the age of eight, the little girl, her brother and parents all picked up and moved ten hours away. She was now a little overweight and awkward, and was the brunt of quite a few jokes in the third grade at her new school. This eroded her confidence. She eventually made some friends, and one friend introduced her to the Broadway musical Annie. (This was a couple of years before the feature film Annie was released).

Now she already knew a little of Broadway, but Annie intrigued the little girl, in that beyond the music, she really understood the story. When the little girl received an Annie record album, she poured over the enclosed pages of pictures from the real Broadway production, with storyline printed below. The little girl learned all the words to all of the songs. She imagined herself right into those pages, playing Annie on Broadway.

By this time--almost nine years old--she no longer put on her own little productions. Her imagination had weakened a great deal, in that she could not imagine away her mother’s amusement of her, making her feel a little foolish for play-acting. And she sometimes reserved her most exuberant singing for the privacy of her bedroom or the shower.

Acting was no longer part of her playtime--it was limited to parts she actually had in real plays at her new church in her new town. They put on Music Machine, and split Nancy and Stevie’s roles across a whole bunch of kids. So the little girl got to be one Nancy, the one who puts a piece of string into the Music Machine to see what comes out. And she got to be a sheep, complete with fluffy costume, for an Easter play and then again on a Noah’s ark float in a community parade. Her parts in plays and productions became smaller and smaller, and although she enjoyed them, her confidence grew dim.

Inside, she still dreamed of acting. She turned her dreams to TV. She’d watch Little House on the Prairie, and imagine playing Laura, and occasionally Mary… but she definitely identified with Laura’s character more… exuberant, curious, compassionate, yet always getting into trouble! She imagined playing Anne of Green Gables… that’s another one she could identify with. And on the Brady Bunch, she wanted to be cast as Cindy. As she grew, she imagined playing either Mallory or Jennifer in Family Ties, and most of the main characters in The Facts of Life.

To Be Continued…

Some more questions for any who want to join in:

• Has disappointment or discouragement crept into your dreamland?


• Did it cause you adjust your dreams and/or your pursuit of them?


• Did you ever allow discouragement to cause you to hide your dreams from others?