The Dream

I have a lot of plans and ideas swirling around in my head. Dreams are my constant companion. Last night after tripping over the dog, Callie, and bumping into our kitchen island for the 100th time, I re-designed the counters and cabinets in my head. I created more counter space, storage space, free space. I went with granite counter tops that complement my new antique-white cabinets. Of course remodeling the kitchen costs money, so I started thinking about Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Plan, and how we need to make our envelope for house maintenance larger. Or start a savings plan for home remodeling. And how our gift giving envelope isn’t big enough for the next two months, with two birthdays and Christmas coming up.

That line of thinking deflates me, so I dream of something else. Of gaining additional income through another means, such as publishing a book. Yes, I’m one of those. I want the ‘American Dream’. I love to write, at any given time there are 3 story lines meandering through my head. When I start to write a story, the characters become real to me. They evolve into living breathing human beings with hearts and souls, until even I wonder what is going to happen to them next. I can close my eyes right now and see Ana sitting on the beach, listening to the waves pound against the sand. I can feel her desolation at finding her husband of fifteen years with another woman. Her fear of the unknown, her confusion and agony at knowing that one moment her life was normal when the very next her heart lay in shattered fragments at her feet. She knows she’s going to make it, there was never a question about that, but Ana doesn’t know if she’ll ever be truly happy again. And as she watches the ocean flow and ebb, a cycle that has been repeated for thousands of years, she can’t understand how life can appear so normal (why are the birds singing?) when inside the chaotic desperation threatens to overwhelm her. If yesterday almost destroyed her, what will tomorrow bring?

I need to get back to that story, to Ana and her kids, I need to understand what will become of her. Though I’ve never been in her position, I can imagine what it must feel like. And to write about an imaginary life brings me great joy and happiness.
But to write takes time, something that I have so little of.

The real point is that I have lots of dreams, and I’ve always said that maybe one day God will decide that it is time for the chips to fall into place. Maybe one day, those dreams will come to fruition. I have to believe that they will, or else they aren’t worth dreaming about.

However, this time I’m going to set a goal and stick to it. In six months I will have a chapter drafted and ready with a synopsis to be sent to a publisher. One year from today, November 5, 2011, I will finish Ana’s story. It will be done and ready for outside review, whether or not the first chapter is accepted. Because not matter what, it’s a story I have in my head, and if I don’t get it down on paper, it will always remain in there. Just banging around, a dream unfulfilled.
It won’t be easy, but nothing worth it is ever easy. Think natural childbirth with a 10lb baby. In six months Kevin will be away training for Afghanistan , and a year from now, he’ll be gone. Still, I’ll get it done.

In the scheme of things I know my dream is just one in a million. Doug wants to open a bed and breakfast, a castle bed and breakfast. Tim wants to open his own winery. I know two others who want to be pilots, and still others, who want to be in a Broadway play.
But some people are able to work hard and turn their dream into reality. I want to be one of those people.