Love Letter #2: Chance & Courage
In America, I was given the blank slate I didn't know I needed—and the courage to write my own story.
Dear United States of America,
If someone were to ask me, what was your biggest gift to me?
I'd say:
“You gave me the chance to start over.”
I didn't understand the rarity of this gift until years later.
Because to truly start over, two things must align: chance and courage.
If a person has courage but no chance, they'll never leave the shore.
If they have a chance but no courage, the ship remains docked.
But when one has both and answers the call to adventure, that's when life transforms.
The Gift of Blank Slates
A peculiar thing happened when I first arrived. I stopped dreaming.
Completely.
As a vivid dreamer, that was strange.
For weeks, it was just blank slates.
It was as if my subconscious had nothing to latch onto.
Everything was too new, too unrecognizable.
Looking back, the absence of dreams was my subconscious trying to make sense of my new world.
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