If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. ~ Marcus Garvey
What follows is an extended metaphor based on the poem “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes.
There are all these people in this world that do not appreciate what they have, and still I suffer. When I would be so much more appreciative of the gifts that I have been blessed with, still I suffer. I guess someone could say that I should be thankful for what I have now but none of this is mine. It is time for me to have my own place in the sun and yet I feel like the raisin – a dream that has dried up.
Once juicy and full of life, I now exist as what I could have been. I am the result of no one choosing me for their harvest. I am the raisin. I’m still capable of being something great, but I was not born as a raisin. Sometimes I wonder if the raisin ever feels inadequate – like it was born to be something but became something else. Does the raisin ever have to say, “Sure I was born a grape, but I’m just as good if not better as a raisin” as if to justify its own existence quite possibly to itself?
I am the raisin who wishes they were a grape. I wish I could have lived up to all of my dreams for myself. All I ever wanted was to be successful. Shaken off the vine, I’ve gone bad. I’m no longer useful for what I was intended to be. Grapes are good on their own. They can be juiced, stomped into wine, cooked, etc…. Raisins only make other things better: Oatmeal raisin cookies, Rum raisin ice cream and Raisinettes just to name a few. They are not classics in their own right. They exist to make other things classics.
They exist only as complements and can, therefore, be substituted. Raisins stay in a box in the cupboard and are hardly ever touched. They get traded for something better in a kid’s lunchbox. The raisin even has an entire stage play, book, and network television movie dedicated to it. But, what does it ask about the raisin? It asks if you’ve let your dream die and dry up like a raisin in the sun. Oh how negatively we speak about the raisin. This poor raisin that was born to be something else but because of circumstances beyond its control it has become a raisin. Is it possible that this raisin has become just what it was meant to be, though?
Speaking for the raisin, I want to say, “So what? I really can be just as good as those darn grapes. Just because I’m a little dehydrated does not mean I’m useless. You just need to look at me in a different light. I’m not what you wanted me to be, but I’m still here. I’m not rotten. I didn’t go bad. I deserve to be treated like I’m worthy. A dream dried up is still a dream. It just needs you to believe in it.” I am a raisin in the sun waiting for someone to believe in me as much as I believe in myself.
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