And So It Begins... Again

Well, after this little incident I literally had just enough money to travel back another 3,000 miles home to California. Could this be true? Could I really be forced to end my mission just a month into my trip? Thus far I had made roughly $700 not even close to the $500,000 I am going for. I can't use the money I have made on my trip because then it would defeat the point of my having raised it in the first place. I raised this money for my movie not to fund me trying to raise it.

After I left Vermont I headed to my friend Becky's, where I knew there I could get a good night sleep, a shower and some verbal support. On my drive back to Boston I had to think long and hard about what I was going to do. I thought it was so ironic that only the night before I was pondering how easy it would be to give everything up, when here I was faced with that very reality.

My drive back was filled with images of all the places and people I had blessed to see on my trip. To end with only $700.. I could hear all the nay Sayers sending out their Hallmark cards reading, "I told you so." Could they be right? Could I allow them to be right? As such thoughts filled my head I realized that no matter what this trip wasn't over. Not by a long shot. I have this mission to collect one dollar from every person in America so I can make my movie, and you know what I am going to do just that. Nothing has to change just because I have had a minor setback, all it means is that I have to revise and improve upon the foundation I have already laid. If anything this trip has provided me the framework to know my strengths and weakness about my mission. One thing that has struck me has been the response from people online. I have gotten tons of emails from absolute strangers who are rooting me on from all over the USA (including some in Canada and the UK). A surprising number of them have told me to put up a Pay Pal account on my site so people who I am not in direct contact with can still donate a dollar to the Dollar 4 a Dream cause.

I think people who are in the confines of their own environment and who can read about me and my mission on their own terms are more willing to understand my passion and dedication to this cause. My friend Becky brought up an interesting pint when she said people are a lot more guarded when you approach them on the street. Case in point when we went to Cape Cod. This nice guy came up to us and asked if we wanted to play some weird beach game he had invented. He was by himself and you needed a large group of people to play the game. As soon as he came over we became guarded. We both thought that he was trying to sell us something- he wasn't. But you automatically take that "no thank you" role.

I have been lucky with people on the street responding well but when I think about how many people congregate onto the world wide web everyday- its in the millions. If I can get the word out about my website to all the message boards, online groups, etc. then I can reach people at a massive scale that I cannot do from the road. There are so many ways to reach people online and best of all its free (permitted you aren't doing so from Kinko's). Plus, do you remember when you were in middle school and had to learn about the birds and the bees. Remember the whole spiel about how when you sleep with one person you are really sleeping with a hundred other people (okay, so that's not exactly how it went but I am sure you get my drift). They would show you the diagram of the one person and all the people that were interconnected to the original person. Okay, so maybe this isn't the greatest example to give you all but it was the only one I could think of.

Anyway, I thought I could apply the same principal to my mission (no it doesn't require sleeping with anyone to get a dollar if that's what you were thinking). If every person that reads my journals told say five of their friends to donate a dollar and to tell these five people to tell their friends- then you get this whole chain reaction thing going on and it starts to add up (I am hoping I haven't lost you all yet)..

I guess what this all amounts to is the fact that there is so much more work for me to do on the Dollar 4 a Dream front. Yes, I have had to cut my trip a month short but in reality everything is just beginning. My job now is to take my same mission, enthusiasm and unwavering dedication to a whole new level and to a whole new audience. I have said this before and I will say it again- by this time next summer I will be in production (or getting ready for production) on my first movie. What does this mean? It means I have a lot of work to do. It's funny really how fast my own rejection from the whole car deal turned into something that has given me even more fuel and energy to strive ahead. I don't care if they lock the doors and throw away the keys I will find a way to plow the doors down myself.

I guess for some people all these things that have happened to me over the course of the last few years have been signs for me to give up. They assume that I am obviously being told by higher powers that I should call it quits. But on the contrary, I see them as indicators of how much I want all this. How much am I willing to fight to make my dreams a reality? I am not going to lie to you - it's hard. There are times when you feel like pushing your head through a wall (or in many cases someone else's), and you are exhausted and on the verge of questioning your own sanity. But the truth of it is- how great will it be when all my dreams are one day realized? The day when I sit in a darkened theater with a crowd of people and I see the words "A Stephanie Webster Film," cross the screen. It will be a day long in the making. And, it will be a day that I can be proud of for the rest of my life. Not because I made a movie but because I never sacrificed what I believed in, because I never gave up, and because most of all I had a dream and I saw it through to the very end. If I have anything to offer you all it is that. Don't give up my friends- if you have a dream see it through. I'm going to make it and so are you!

Remember its not over- it's just beginning.
Love, Stephanie