When Dreams Don't Work Out

Do you know what it is like to have a dream, and then life throws you problem after problem when you are just starting out. Then, you finally give up on the said dream? The life you always imagined is gone in the blink of an eye, and you start to think about old goals, and you try to come up with new ones, but none of them fill that void of the dream that will never be. This has happened to me so many times I can’t even count. 

At first, I wanted to be a ballerina, but I was told from a young age, I never had the body. My turn out was not enough, and my body type would always be an issue. I did dance for 14 years despite the abuse until my body couldn’t take it anymore. 

There were shorter dreams like wanting to be in the FBI or CIA to be an agent. It was about the greater good for me, thinking I would make a difference in the world. 

My life long dream has been wanting to be a writer. Even now, while writing, I still have those moments when I struggle with the idea of being a writer.

What is being a writer, really?

Writing daily?

Writing a few times a week?

When you publish your work?

When you are paid to publish your work?

When you are paid to publish your work by a literary magazine only?

When you win an award?

I had this professor in college, and it was my first time on campus. I was randomly assigned to him and had decided on an emphasis on poetry because the previous year, I was having a love affair with Yeats, Keats, and Byron. We were quite the foursome, and I was still lost in my lovers’ haze when the professor sat there staring at me. 

“Do you have a burning desire to write?” He turned back to his computer, searching for classes. 

“Sorry?” I only am concerned with burning sensations when I pee. 

“Do you have a burning desire to write, is a fire within you that can’t be contained?” He was yelling now. “It is the only way you will ever make it.” 

I was silent and unsure why someone would associate burning with desire. When you say burning, I immediately go to infection

“WELL!”

“Yes,” I whisper, raising my brow to see if I have said the correct answer. 

“Okay.” He stared a few moments at me and then continued on planning my classes. 

This was my introduction to if you know whether you are a writer or not. While I still think he should have seen his doctor about all his burning feelings, it wasn’t until many years later that I understood his point. My goals in that first meeting were still the safe route, and I planned on being a professor. I had to make sure I had a stable income while I produced my art. 

What I didn’t understand then was how much passion it would take to get my dreams off the ground. I was not a favorite student of anyone in the department. While I had good grades, no one told me to submit my work to publish or anything. 

When I graduated, I did whatever other student was doing trying to get a job as a writer. Without an internship or experience of any kind, I had to give up on the dream then to pay the bills. 

I didn’t know years later I would pick up writing again, and I would dream of a new dream. It was about writing for the one person who needed it.  

There are many times I have gotten caught up in my dreams of changing the world. I have always thought if I am not changing it in significant ways, then clearly, I am not doing enough. But I am improving this world with the one person who reads what I write and gets out of it what they needed. So I am learning it is okay to take an old dream and give birth to a new dream. It is okay when things don’t work. Just don’t stop dreaming. 

In the meantime, just write.