Beginning of it all

A biblioteca dos sonhos secretos - Michiko Aoyama

I want to share with you a text I wrote a few months ago. I have a habit of always writing about situations I'm experiencing that have great meaning to me and this one, in particular, is something I don't want to keep to myself. I hope this reading also inspires you to seek God's dreams for your life.

Moving to Atlanta. October 17, 2024.

This morning I left for Atlanta. Traveling abroad isn't new to me, but this time it feels like my first time. Perhaps because this is the first time I'm traveling in my new version.

It's been two years of intense therapy, self-discovery, and emotional and spiritual growth. It seems like life changed suddenly with this trip, but it didn't. I gradually conquered small steps to make this dream become a reality.

While preparing for the trip, I had to select what to take with me and what to leave behind. And the most interesting thing is that I don't feel like I lost anything, but rather that I made space to gain new things.

I brought with me a book I should have read two years ago when I received it, "The Library of Secret Dreams" written by Michiko Aoyama. I feel as if I were one of the characters in the book, and the book that librarian Sayuri recommended is the one I'm reading.

I started reading on the flight from Guarulhos to Bogotá after napping a bit. Now I feel I should ration the pages so the next flights will be interesting too.

The beauty and what fits most with my story right now is the change in the characters' perspectives. Tomaka learned to see value in what she does and not let what she saw as a lack of status or life perspective prevent her from having a fantastic life. She learned that if she changed her outlook on routine tasks, she would end up finding enough motivation to turn her current life into an adventure.

Ryo learned that not every dream needs to wait to be realized someday. He realized that if he wanted, he could balance his bill-paying job with his dream of having an antique shop. He discovered he could create a parallel career, but this would require him to be much more assertive, so he began optimizing his time at work to have time to run his business.

I learned that just moving to another city, like Tomaka did when she moved to Tokyo, doesn't mean I'll automatically start living the fantastic life I've dreamed of. I need to invest not only time but dedication to the small daily tasks, and with time, what was once difficult has now become easy.

From Ryo, I learned that achievements are built on trust. Not just trusting myself and my abilities, but creating relationships built on trust. They generate opportunities in the future too.

I feel like I went to the community center and got a list of books about starting a career in cinema, and the librarian included this book as a recommendation because she knew what I needed most was stories about new beginnings to inspire and motivate me, not technical books about the film career.

Ryo was afraid of going bankrupt just like the childhood store that inspired his dream of having an antique shop went bankrupt. But his girlfriend Hina motivates him to try, saying that going bankrupt isn't a big problem - if you fail, you just try again correcting previous mistakes.

And like in the book's stories where we only get a spark of a possible fire, I'll end mine here. Just so when I need to I can come back and reread what inspired me. This is Marina's story, 33, filmmaker.

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If you wish to read the book and have the pleasure of being inspired by it, I leave here the Amazon link. https://amzn.to/3Wq1AhR