To Stephen King, who tells us not to let strangers (living their own nightmares) “stomp on our dreams”.

Dear Stephen,

“It’s not the “bad guys” who stomp on dreams. It’s not the monster people “living their nightmares”. We recognize them. Our dreams are not dashed by strangers. We don’t care enough about strangers for what they do to affect us that much. No, it is the well meaning people we love and trust who have the power to destroy us. The people who let us down or worse, held us down. Those are the ones with the power to stomp on our dreams. The people who wanted what was best for us so they forced their idea of “best” upon us so we’d be happy, so we’d have “security”.

People who didn’t understand that dreams are the ONLY security.

It’s not simple to recover from that. We shouldn’t live in the past but we ARE the sum of our past experiences. Following your dreams takes hope – it’s not logical. Can people give themselves hope? Maybe. Is it ever too late? I don’t know but what have we got to lose by trying?

If you were lucky enough to have been encouraged by someone who gave you hope along the way – and you have any to spare, please share. Some of us can use it.