A Child’s Dream, An Adult’s Dilemma
The reality of my life today is nothing like I once expected it to be.
I wanted to be a writer like my mom. I wanted to be a bestselling fiction author like the bold-font names on the fantasy books I read as a child, complete with colorful covers and interest-catching titles.
I drew maps on giant pads of white paper, invented fictional names and places, carried notebooks in my pocket, made toys that emulated characters and objects from fantasy stories, came up with dozens of ideas and beginnings for stories, and imagined magical powers that could only be possible in a world of my own making. With “mentors” like Tolkien, Lewis, Le Guin, L’Engle, Rowling, Flanagan, Jacques, Riordan, and Paolini as my sources of inspiration, it seemed anything was possible.
I went to college and got a creative writing degree, full of hope that this education would help me fulfill my writerly dreams and make me much moolah. I graduated and got a job, then switched to another job, and another.
Along the way, my mom and many other loved ones passed away, and I lost a writing job, and my dream cracked like a smartphone that’s been dropped on the sidewalk. Then the Lord surprised me with a call to pastoral ministry, so I responded and began to seek the education that could lead me to ordination.
There’s a lot more to this story. I shared as much as I could fit into twenty-five minutes this past Wednesday at the recovery meeting I help lead. Then, this past Saturday, I remembered for the eighth time the anniversary of my mom going home to Jesus. Sunday, I preached my fourth-ever message before twenty or thirty people in a small suburb church.
And I wonder today, as I often do, where my childhood dreams can find a place in my life again. My interests have not changed much, but they have broadened and become more complicated as I have become a fully independent adult who wants to have a social life and a creative life. The glasses are no longer rose-colored, but more sepia-toned, and the edges of the memories that formed the dreams are beginning to get fuzzy.
I still want to create fantasy worlds and tell stories that have the potential to capture our current cultural climate, change the world, get Redditors wrapped up in theorizing, and affect generations’ worth of people. (Side note: I’m blown away by the fact that I now live in a world where both Percy Jackson and Harry Potter, two YA series that shaped my adolescent writer soul, are getting streaming TV adaptations at almost the same time.)
The author dream is not gone. He’s just tucked away in a corner at the back of my brain, twiddling his thumbs with his eyes closed, fedora tilted low over his forehead, not quite sleeping because sometimes he opens an eye and whispers, “Is it time yet?”
That is the question, isn’t it.
I haven’t given up. I’ve kept my inner child’s dream alive even as adulthood has wagged its responsible finger at me, reminding me I need to sweep the floor, do my laundry, wash my dishes, and maybe even finally find a wife and start a family.
I often feel like I’m just a bigger version of that dreaming boy. Unfortunately, many of those dreams have yet to be realized. After all, I thought I’d be a bestselling author by now, maybe even working in the cutthroat, celebrity- and influencer-favoring, hot-button-topic-loving publishing industry. Funny stuff.
In that case, the follow-up question is simple: how do I help that dream stand to his feet, dust him off, adjust his fedora, and proclaim, “Your time has come!”, when the truth is, it’s hard to believe that will ever actually happen?
…especially when I’ve never actually finished writing a book.
Some say it’s just a matter of re-examining your time and priorities. Others say it’s an issue of self-discipline, habit formation, or hyper-focusing (like some of my friends and relatives who have ADHD can do, even if it means forgetting to eat). Some bold, enterprising folks with YouTube channels and corporate sponsors earnestly say, “Quit your job like I did!” Still other people just sigh and say, “How indeed?”
I somehow agree with all of them, but that’s kind of the problem. I wish it was as simple as sitting down at my laptop, cracking my knuckles, and moving my fingers rapidly on a keyboard as if I had absolutely nothing else to do. But resistance is tough to overcome, just like the internal critic I wrote about last week.
And, of course, as I’ve explained in another previous post, there’s obviously fear of every kind. That accusing voice whispers negativity, then grabs the clock and squeezes out all the ticks and tocks, only to let them vaporize and disappear.
I’m probably just going to have to make some hard changes.
I need to stop scrolling so much (or *gasp* completely).
I need to read a lot more (and more slowly so I can read critically and take notes).
I need to arm-wrestle my calendar (“small, achievable goals,” as I’ve been hearing most of my life).
I need to break the news to both my internal overcommitting optimist and internal overthinking worrywart that it’s time to just fire the starting pistol (though this will be an ultramarathon, not a sprint).
And of course I need to commit it all to prayer.
But I suppose only one thing really matters here, no matter what I end up doing tomorrow or next year or in ten years: I don’t want to give up on this dream. I don’t plan to.
Even if I’m not a published fiction author until I’m sixty years old, it’ll count. I’ll wink at the dream in the corner, and he’ll doff his fedora. We’ll both chuckle at our grey hair. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to do it all again.