Following Your Dream

I had a marvelous day yesterday. Jason had been gone all week, every bedtime, due to work travel and dinners, so I bartered for some writing time on Saturday. He took both kids up to Calgary Olympic Park for Ava's third snowboard lesson (she even got to get off the bunny hill and go on the chairlift and come down the bigger hill on her own!). He had them out and about for about 5 hours.

I worked the entire day on my screenplay, revising for the fifth time based on specific feedback from a friend who knows scripts quite well. I'm used to writing for 30 minutes here, maybe an hour there if I'm lucky, and even then with near constant interruptions. To have this block of time was an unusual luxury and I reveled in it. It was amazing to be so absorbed into the story, and some great new scenes came out of it. When they got home, and began chattering about their experiences, I found it really hard to emerge from my created world of characters into my real life world of family. That's never happened so deeply to me before, and it was inspiring, because it means my writing is becoming more real to me all of the time.

This dream to write is alive, and like all growing things, it changes all of the time. I've enjoyed charting its growth and being open to its possibilities. In some ways, writing has been challenging for my family as I become very single-minded when I'm in the middle of it, but I am so much happier and more fulfilled, so that must count for something in our day-to-day experience. All dreams are worth pursuing. I love being able to model this on a daily basis for both of my kids. They can do anything they set their minds to. I don't want them to limit themselves; to feel like I did that I must pursue a "real" career and then just write on the side. I want them to believe they can do anything they want to do, personally or professionally.

Ava was reading a book at bedtime the other night and she came running out to show me that one of the characters was an author. "Like you!" she said. My heart beat a little faster with pride, in myself and in my daughter, for her joy was contagious. I smiled and said, "That's right, I'm an author." It felt wonderful to say it out loud and to have my almost seven year old daughter recognize it. I'm on the right road. It's never too late to pursue long-held dreams or even new ones. The act of following your dream turns out to be its own reward.