Daydreamer

Don't quit your daydream.

I’m not one to get hit by song lyrics often. Mainly because my hearing sucks and I don’t hear them correctly anyway. BUT, I came across Daydream by Lily Meola tonight…with subtitles…and the lyrics hit me. Here is a snippet:

All these things we say we'll get to
Shot down by the reasons not to
Darlin' don't quit your daydream
It's your life that you're making
It ain't big enough if it doesn't scare the hell out of you
If it makes you nervous
It's probably worth it
Why save it for sleep when you could be
Living your daydream

Here is the video if interested

So, it got me thinking…how am I living out my daydream?

Childhood Tessa had some wild ideas. I’ve dreamt up a lot of different things which is part of how I know I’m in the right career right now…bringing candy dreams to life. But this is about to take a look into how those daydreams have manifested and the excitement this holds for the future of the daydreams I have today. Ready? Me either but here we go…

First, the main daydreams that have fallen out of my control include being and Olympic gymnast under Bela Karolyi and having a little brother. To the former, I never took gymnastics, and the latter…cllllleeeearly not my call.

But if I really think about some of the things that have rolled around in my head for decades, an astonishing amount of them have developed into reality. The mind is freaking amazing.

A quick demo of making a candy charcuterie board. The fact that we can call a pile of candy something fancy like a “candy charcuterie board” feels like a manifestation of my daydreams alone.

I often dreamed about creating new things that other people would purchase. Edible tape, fancy chicken coops, …little beaded keychains that looked like The Spice Girls… and now I literally have a career making new things for people and helping other people create new things for people. Tessa, we get it, you’re a candy scientist and Create. New. Things. Yes, BUT…have you tried Norma’s Handcrafted Fruity Snacks yet? ;)

Working construction on a masonry crew provided a ton of time for daydreaming. (If you’ve ever been the striker on a brick house, you probably understand.) I dreamed of living in a city ✔️, hosting themed dinner parties ✔️ and having a cooking show. A cooking show beyond my grandma’s kitchen. This hasn’t manifested onto The Food Network quite yet, BUT… Good Morning America just posted a video of me showing how to make Halloween gummy eyeballs, and for right now that feels close enough!

I’m forever grateful that my parents allowed me to believe that I could do anything, but I also always secretly held on to some daydreams in fear that they were silly or stupid or impossible…or that I’d need to prove it first because it otherwise didn’t exist yet…like gummy eyeballs. Please let me know if you try making them too.

Something feels different now. Maybe it is being an adult and I can make messes without anyone being concerned about the marshmallow overflowing in the microwave, or maybe it is because my previous daydreams have really just proven themselves. However, I firmly believe that we are gifted hopes, desires, talents, and sometimes wild ideas to bring goodness to the world and live a unique and gifted life. These daydreams, when paired with positive intent might be in us to push us to do and be better. They might feel silly or impossible inside, but the more they keep rattling around, the more I think they should come to life. And that is wildly exciting!

To quote Lily…”if it makes you nervous, it is probably worth it.”

So, what is your daydream?

I get really jazzed up hearing about other people’s dreams. Life can be relentlessly short so pleeeeeeease don’t hold your impact in! I’m not telling you to quit your job and take on a new life’s mission on a dime…I don’t need that responsibility…but I do hope you review your daydreams and nudge them forward a bit. Also, please tell me about them in some way. Email me. Call me. Text me. Mail me a letter. Drop it in the comments. Anything. Manifest that shit.

I’ll start. Because I thought my life’s mission was to lead R&D at a candy company and then I hit that a bit earlier than planned, it is SO FUN to dream about what the future holds. Like maybe my impact is more than a new jelly bean? Haha.

I don’t know that I’ve ever told anyone about this next one so bear with me. Public speaking. Yes, I was totally a speech geek in high school, but that isn’t what I’m talking about here. I remember being 10 or 11 and Aaron Davis did a presentation at our church. It was the first time I’d ever seen a dynamic speaker speak, and that night I envisioned myself standing in a packed gym talking to the audience about living their dreams. Since then, that vision has always been in the back of my mind. It just kind of takes up residence there with this reassurance of “yep, that will be a thing someday but not yet”. I agree…it feels like a joke that anyone would want a candy scientist to come talk about living with a purpose, and nobody is flooding my inbox asking for keynote speeches… but yet it feels closer, and is still a daydream when I take the time to daydream.

Being a science teacher. Taking on a full-time teaching role at a school is about as likely as me becoming a lunch lady (which has also crossed my mind before), but there is something around this that is slowly piecing together. It might be more candy science sessions, it might be a bigger project, but I think this daydream is going to be really fun!

Your daydreams might be on the brink of impacting the world. Don’t keep them hidden forever.

So scared of failure that we fail to try
Turnin' around before the finish line
Gotta fall for a minute before you can fly

Sweet Fact #10

Have you ever crunched on a LifeSaver’s Wint-o-green mint in the dark? It SPARKS! The sparking is because of a phenomenon called triboluminescence which is when light is emitted from material being struck or crushed and energy is transferred through electrons. In this case, the electrons of crystalline sugar. The wintergreen oil is thought to enhance the light as not all candies show this as clearly. Stand in front of the mirror in a dark bathroom and bite down on a Wintergreen Lifesaver to see if you create a candy lightning storm!

There is a super cool article about this on Thought Co.