Miles to Go (21 page)

Things Happen for a Reason

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hen my mom was pregnant with me, my dad called her from the road. He says he had a vision. An instinct. The same way Dad plays music by ear, he likes to play life by ear. He says his intuition told him that the baby in my mom’s womb was destined to be something that represented the light. Something positive. He said, “You know what? I just feel like that little baby is Destiny Hope Cyrus.” When Dad’s famous intuition talks, we listen. So Mom said, “That’s it. That’s her name.” But as soon as I was born I became “Smiley,” then “Smiley Miley,” then Miley. I don’t think anyone ever actually called me Destiny, so I decided to legally change my name to Miley.

My parents named me Destiny Hope because they believed that my destiny was to bring hope to people. My life does feel driven by destiny right now, but maybe that’s only because my biggest dreams are actually coming true. Most people go through ups and downs, successes and failures, to figure out their true calling. My dad was a boxer for a long time, and then he thought he’d be a baseball player. But then he had a dream that told him to buy a left-handed guitar and start a band. He did, and the rest is history. I came across my calling early, and there is always the chance I could fail.

While I was growing up, my dad would remind me that Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times when trying to make a storage battery. When a reporter asked Edison about his failures, he said, “I have not failed seven hundred times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those seven hundred ways will not work.” I get it.
The most important ingredient in success is failure.

Mandy sometimes calls me the most unlucky lucky person in the world. My heels break. My hair dryers blow. I got stuck on the Revenge of the Mummy ride at Universal Studios. I was stuck in Splash Mountain at Disneyland for half an hour.
(I’m particularly unlucky at amusement parks. Except when it comes to birthday parties.)
I was standing on the red carpet with Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, and a bee came up and stung one of us. Which one? Me, of course (unlucky). A few days ago, I was at the mall with Mandy and I had my period and no tampons (unlucky). I went to the bathroom to buy one, but I had no change (unlucky). Then something changed. As I stood that day staring at the tampon dispenser, four tampons fell out of it, right into my hands (lucky!). And later when I withdrew twenty dollars from an ATM, the machine gave me sixty bucks (lucky!).
(I returned it, of course!)
The way I think of it is that the little bad moments make the little good moments better. That doesn’t mean I necessarily enjoy forgetting my lines or messing up a dance move, but weathering all those everyday frustrations and victories helps us practice for the bigger disappointments that are sure to come along.

I don’t know how long my fame and success will last, but if years from now I’m playing coffeehouses instead of stadiums, that’s okay so long as I’m still inspired and still inspiring a few people. I’ll keep doing my art. And, like I said when I talked about my sixteenth birthday party: for now, while the spotlight is on me, I want to use it well. I have an opportunity to make a difference in the world. I may have changed my name, but that doesn’t mean I’m saying no to the destiny my parents envisioned for me. I don’t want Hope as a middle name. But I sure want to try to bring it to everyone I meet or touch. I wrote a song called “Wake Up America” about taking care of our planet. It’s on my album
Breakout
, which to date has sold over a million copies. How many chances do we have to remind that number of kids that this is their planet to love and save? That we have to protect the future? I have that chance, and I want to make the most of it. I meet kids in hospitals and schools and hope I can make them smile for that one quick moment, and I want to keep doing bigger things for organizations like City of Hope and Youth Service America that really make a long-term difference.

How could I be born into a name like Destiny Hope and not believe that things happen for a reason? Life is unpredictable. Nothing is written in stone. I’ve told you about myself, but I can’t really say who I’ll be. There’s no right or wrong, success or failure. I don’t look at things as black or white. My life won’t be a series of either/ors—musician or actor, rock or country, straitlaced or rebellious, this or that, yes or no. The real choices in life aren’t that simple. I think of it more like a story that keeps moving forward, with plain old days and then surprises that turn everything upside down. I don’t set limits for myself. I want to be the best I can be. I want to dream big, but dreams change.

What I want, who I want to be, how I want to spend my time—keeping these questions open is good. It’s life. I’m living every day of my life. When you think like that—and when you’re only sixteen—then you’re living a story that has chapter after chapter of blank pages ahead.
If there’s one message I have for my fans, it’s that you can make your dreams real, but you have to enjoy just being. Make the best of the life you have every day. I can’t wait to see what’s in the days ahead, but I also don’t want to fill them up too fast.

Afterword: Before I Sleep

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hen my dad tells me that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction, he doesn’t usually stop there. He reminds me that life is a series of ups and downs, peaks and valleys for everyone in every walk of life: farmers, businessmen and women, people who work in steel mills like Pappy did. And it’s a whole lot harder to come down than it is to go up. But in the valleys, you find out who you really are.

My parents both talk about the day when all this slows down. My mom thinks I’ll enjoy life more. My dad thinks I’ll have more time to take it all in. But I know I’m blessed for this moment. I love my work. If I don’t work this hard forever, I don’t know what I’ll do with all the extra time and energy, though I have a few ideas (see the next few pages). I may have to get really, really good at calligraphy.

Even with a party to look forward to, I didn’t want my sixteenth birthday to come. I love being the baby and thought that might stop. I don’t even have any idea how to do my own laundry. (That’s one of the ways in which my mom has babied me a little.) I have plenty of grown-up responsibilities—working full-time while still doing schoolwork, having meetings, meeting deadlines. My mom knows I need to be a kid sometimes, to feel safe and cared for and be driven around—though I hope that last one ends the second I get my license.

But yeah, I’m going to have to figure out the laundry thing at some point before I leave home. And you know what? I’m kind of excited. Because no matter what I do, even if its just a load of laundry, I’ll be traveling forward, making my own future—and there are still miles and miles to go.

After the After

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n the original afterword, I wrote that I was scared to grow up. But I think I might have already done it—without even knowing. I mean, not totally. Like I said, I do still have miles to go.
(At least I have my own car now!)
But the experiences of the past year have pushed me forward in ways I’d never have imagined. I sat on a beach and came to grips with letting go. I opened my heart and fell in love again. I lost love but gained friendship. I traveled to new countries and went back home to familiar places. And, you’d be proud to know, I learned to do my laundry!

Still, those are only a few lessons. Only a few of the mile markers. There are more to come. Some of them I can guess, some of them are going to be surprises. And you know what? I can’t wait.