Dream With Me

I started writing in my forties. Join me as I chase my writing dreams.

For several months, I’ve been thinking about writing on Substack. As someone who began writing later in life, I want to harness the enthusiasm, inspiration, and creative energy that fuel my new passion. I want to showcase what it looks like to take a detour in life. I want to inspire people to dream big. 

Except it doesn’t always feel like that.

The truth is that I haven’t been writing as much as I want to be writing, as much as I should be writing to reach my goals. I have reasons, of course. But at this point in my life and very young writing career, those reasons no longer feel like enough, and I wonder how we bridge the gap between dreams and reality.

As the universe likes to remind us, clarity is often the reward after a bit of a struggle; we hold most answers within ourselves. For me, it took spring break—a week-long, very quiet staycation with my three boys—to figure myself out. 

On the first day of break, the silence was notable. We live next to an elementary school; traffic was nonexistent, the sidewalks devoid of the usual flow of young families. As I listed friends to call for playdates, my 9-yr-old responded with their respective travel destinations: Mexico, London, and lots of Hawaii. An indisputable sense of FOMO, usually not an issue for my introverted self, began its slow creep into my mind.

Was it possible that all our neighbors were together, drinking cocktails at the same Hawaiian resort? Was it possible that everyone was on vacation except for us? This year, more than any others, I’m a tiny bit embarrassed to admit that it felt that way.

The choices were clear: to be swept away with self-pity or take charge of our own happiness. The latter seemed a tall order, but I couldn’t fathom a week of the former, not with two moody teenagers and an ultra-social 9-year-old without playmates. I took a deep breath and forged ahead.

By the end of the week, we had slept in most days, gone out to eat several times, seen a movie or two, and fallen into a gentle rhythm that included reading, bike rides, and probably too much Minecraft. Still, I was agitated. 

One evening, my oldest son and I stood at the sink, washing the dinner dishes. I apologized for the millionth time that it was such a boring week, that we hadn’t gone anywhere fabulous. He shut off the water, set down the plate he was scrubbing, and said, “Mom, please stop saying that. Maybe you don’t believe this, but I actually love staying home. We’re all okay as long as you are.” 

And there it was. Why wasn’t I okay?

That night, while reading the March 2023 issue of The Sun, I couldn’t help but pause on the section called “A Bird In My Living Room” in “Sparrow’s Guide to Business.” Sparrow describes a bird, having entered the house through an open kitchen door, flying repeatedly into a window despite the availability of other escape routes:

“We are all like this bird. We know our goal. We attempt to take the direct path, so easy and clear. Yet we fail. We don’t realize that the indirect path is faster.” 

The words struck a nerve. Like the bird, I know where I want to go, but the path has felt blocked. Was I like the bird, pounding against the glass with my writing?

My source of discontent became clear; I have allowed my writing to get pushed to the side of everything else happening in my life, and my dreams would remain just that if I didn’t get a handle on the bedrock of any creative venture—the dedicated, persistent, and often unglamorous, act of showing up to create.

Like the bird, I needed to shift my perspective to find my solution.

The last day of spring break was breezy, but the sky was a cloudless, deep blue, and I brought my youngest to the beach while his brothers slept. Except for a little girl and her mother, the shore was deserted. I nestled into a rock, pulled my hood up against the wind, and watched my boy play.

The moment his toes hit the sand, the rest of the world fell away, and I remembered that it has always been like this for him at the beach. He digs, collects pearly turban snail shells, races the tide, and dumps buckets of water down castle moats. He races through flocks of unsuspecting seagulls, his hair flying away from his face as he basks in the sunshine at top speed. He is delighted and utterly immersed in his seaside world. Extroverted as he is, he doesn’t need anyone when he’s at the beach.

And I thought: that is how I feel when I write.

As much as I value feedback and collaboration, at the moment of creation it is just me and my work, like my son and the tunnel he was digging in the sand. He dug, not in spite of, but alongside the waves crashing nearby, which threatened to wash away his efforts at any moment. A few times they did, and he started over in the same spot or moved; either way, he didn’t stop. As the sun glimmered off the swell, the ocean—the same Pacific washing onto Hawaiian beaches—lent perspective, as it always does.

Without the noise and padding of daily life during that week at home, the path became clear. Like the bird, my goals require a different route, the one that fits my writing into and alongside the rest of my messy, chaotic, wonderful life. While I have big publication dreams, I know, when I dig deep, I write to honor my creativity, to process whatever the universe throws my way on any given day, and to connect.

Life can be overwhelming and writing is hard. Still, it’s all I really want to do. 

I’m a mother of three boys, a former teacher, and now a writer. I’d be honored to have your company as I carve a new path, look for the magic in the ordinary, and attempt to balance it with the rest of my life.

I just had a birthday, and if I’ve learned anything in my forties, it’s that these years feel bittersweet; they are rich in self-reflection, clarity, and joy in life’s pleasures, yet harsh in the reality of age and loss, at times dense with grief. The need to make the most of this life feels more pressing each time I blow out those candles.

We don’t have time to waste, especially when we’re chasing dreams.

Thanks for being here.