“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you will land among the stars.”

I dreamt of flying high with Peter Pan or walking down Mulberry Street and seeing the sights. I went to Wonderland with the White Rabbit and swam through oceans with the Rainbow Fish. I saw the world from my bed at the age of four. At age 7 though, I was diagnosed with dyslexia and told I should find a different hobby.

The stars seemed darker for the first time in my life. My summers were spent with a tutor when I yearned to play outside, but I fought. I had to prove people wrong. I could read and write just as well as my peers, so I wrote.

First, it was in a diary I got from the arcade after playing skee-ball for hours to win enough tickets. Then, it was in a notebook under my pillow so no one stole my thoughts while I slept. My backward b and upside down p haunted my dreams, but still pen and paper became my world. I wrote to dream, to escape, and to express. Writing became a coping mechanism, a way to deal with the pain of existing. Instead of a knife to my wrist, I took a pen to paper.

During middle school, I saw flyers for poetry competitions and read-alouds. I longed to do more, but I was afraid. My footing felt unstable: like the moment I outstretched my arms, my world of writing would fall apart. I was not good enough, and I would never be.

I folded up the pages of my diary. I destroy the words I had spent hours crafting. Ripped pages covered my carpet, and eventually, I lost the key to my diary altogether. I thought growing up was to lose your childhood joy, so I did. I would be a good doctor. I would be a good lawyer. I would be a good engineer. I would be good, but I would not be happy. I lied to myself.

Then, I walked into that bright, colorful classroom on my first day of tenth grade. Research: a class I dreaded, but as the teacher reviewed the syllabus, I got excited. We had to construct a research paper on a topic of our choice. I was finally excited to write again.

My pen returned to me as though we were lovers under star-studded skies. Those stars were my dreams, and they came back slowly as though an eclipse began to wane. I wrote and wrote. Eventually, I got a draft I was proud of and submitted it for publication. Today, I can proudly say I am a published author.

This journey taught me to be ambitious and not fear failure. What people do not realize is that behind the stars you see are hidden stars waiting to be discovered. If you just shoot up, you are bound to hit something.