No Expiry Dates on Dreams

hydrangeas

In my late teens, I once paid a palm reader at the Calgary Stampede $40 to tell me all about my future.  (You can giggle at me over this if you want to.) Since I was making something like $8.50/hour at that point in my life, it was a pretty big deal.

He told me that I’d be successful and that I’d do something I really loved – but not until I was ‘older’. He didn’t specify what older really meant, but I was 18 at the time.

I’ve had a bunch of false starts, late blooms and fails – times when I might have given up on myself, or when others might have given up on me. Not very many people know this about me, but I dropped out of high school. I was fired from my first ‘real job’. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 24 – and I think I only passed the test due to being hugely pregnant and a little bit emotional. I went back to working a minimum wage retail job at the age of 25 (though I really, really loved that job!) My plans to open a baby boutique fell through when I got pregnant with my second. And then there was that whole divorce thing…

Yet there’s something about believing that it’s never too late – taking that palm reader’s words to heart, I must have at least a few more years worth of chances at getting this success thing right (Cuz obviously I’m not old yet, right?!). I don’t think we ever need to let go of a dream because we waited too long or got too old.  Because I can’t think of many real, brave dreams we have for ourselves that have an expiration date or a time limit.

For the record, I graduated high school at the age of 20, as valedictorian. And about six months after I got fired, I found a great new job that I loved doing. And the baby boutique didn’t pan out, but I *did* launch my photography business.

Of course, that palm reader also told me I’d have three children – a boy and two girls. (Another medium told me she saw me with three kids, too, this year. In fact, she kept mentioning my ‘three’ kids several times over the course of the hour). (I have two kids, by the way, a boy and a girl.) Ha! They sure are nutty, those psychic types…

Stephanie Ostermann

I’m the sort of girl who you meet for coffee and end up pouring your entire heart out to. The friend you come to when you need someone to call it straight. No bullshit. No extras. Just truth.

I’m a communicator. That’s a PC way of saying I like to talk, but I also spend a lot of my time listening, and over the years, I’ve developed a sense for subtext – how one or two words can change your entire message, what people are really trying to say and how to weave the varied layers of your story into one cohesive brand message that your clients fall in love with.

When I'm not acting as editor in chief for Vivid & Brave, you can find me geeking out over words here.

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