I was fifteen when I said something embarrassingly earnest:

I was fifteen when I said something embarrassingly earnest: “If you put your mind to it, you can do anything.”

My dad and a family friend shut it down immediately. “You’ll never be a pro basketball player.” “That’s not how life works.”

I understand their point now — they weren’t wrong. But what stuck wasn’t the logic. It was the dismissal. The contempt. The feeling of having spoken too boldly, too brightly.

I learned not to say hopeful things around certain people. Not to express possibility. Not to dream out loud.

I see now how deeply that shaped me:

I grew quiet. I kept my ideas to myself. I deferred. I shrank.

And I vowed — silently — that if I ever had children, I would never tell them the world was closed.

Yesterday at my artist talk, my son wanted to address the audience and touch the artwork. I let him. Why wouldn’t I? The world will shrink him soon enough. Childhood wonder deserves sanctuary.