Papier collé 01 : The Dream Issue - Where'd All The Dreamers Go?

Growing up, I was convinced that I would become a fashion-designing-artist-singer-programmer person who would also be a cross between Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. These were the things I wanted to do with my life : art, fashion, writing , programming , charity and music.

Many years later, I'm still not there yet.

I vividly remember my childhood self, cutting up my own clothes, when my mum wasn't looking of course, to make clothes for my Barbies. My room was littered with fashion magazines and sketchbooks with designs for fashion lines I'd created. I remember, in primary school, my bestfriend and I made a Minnie Mouse zine that we sold to our friends. Whenever I wasn't doing art you'd find me singing along to Whitney, Mariah, Yvonne Chaka-Chaka, Lucky Dube, Koffi Olomide... all the while imagining what an elaborate performer I would one day become.

I like to think I was a bold child, at least in terms of where my imagination could go. So what happened to that little dreamer girl with dreams bigger than herself?

Well, I hate to say it but she grew up! I grew up. I got busy, my priorities changed, and somewhere along the way to adulthood, I let go of my dreams. A couple of months ago, while I was on the phone with my mum, I realised that it has been about 3 years since I’d picked up a pencil to sketch a design or a paint brush to do some art.It wasn't for lack of trying, I just seemed to have lost the drive, confidence and ferocity that I’d chased my dreams with when I was a child.

I've always felt that as we enter adulthood and start to become more aware of the world around us  something happens that strips us of the naïveté and innocence of childhood and I guess that's the moment we begin to doubt ourselves. We begin to realise that we're adults and it is time to be 'realistic' whatever the world's definition of that is. As children we have the audacity of hope, uh I'm gonna steal that Obama please don't sue me!. As children, we don't fear the word "no", we just do things as we please and as we see fit because the fears that plague us in adulthood aren't there to inhibit our creativity.

We're not worrying about rent, we're not panicking that we're almost 25 and haven't done anything with our lives, we're just doing whatever the heck we want with absolutely no inhibition. I miss that.

But the beautiful and sometimes annoying thing about dreams is that no matter what, they won't leave you alone until you give them a chance. Even though I am not actively pursing my dreams I am constantly bombarded by ideas for fashion, stories, crazy projects and I find myself constantly planning and plotting in my head. The thing is that there's two kinds of dreamers in this world; the ones who do just that, dream, and the ones who bring their dreams to life. I think that i've mastered category number one and now it's time for me to discover what it feels like to be in the latter.

You've got to try and make your dreams come true in anyway that you can. Start small. Do things how you want to do them. The only person who should dictate your dreams should be you. I'm not saying that I'm going to be the next Beyoncé, but that doesn't mean that I should stop singing all together. Who knows, I could still rock out in someone's garage band! The thing that matters is that many years from now, I will look back and the most important thing will be that at least I tried.

Next: They said it...