Dreaming

Hey, guys!

Progress report first.

So, I got like…20 pages edited since my last blog post. :/

But I also got a potential cover for Soul Bearer knocked out, with a second option currently on the works. And I designed some swag for the release!

All of which…believe it or not…took a long ass fucking time. Lol. There’s a reason graphic designers charge as much as they do. It’s hard work, and takes time.

The biggest part of my days off this week was spent driving and/or riding back home from Texas. Thanks to traffic and shitty drive thru wait times, the 15 hour drive turned into 17.5 hours…

So that sucked.

But oh well. I’m back home now, and have my work week behind me. I’ll be able to put in some real editing time this week (hopefully), and get the final potential cover mocked up so I can pick one, and start moving forward there.

Now, the main event…Lol.

Today, I’m sort of continuing last week’s topic, but not really. Last week, I talked about making time to write. This week, I want to talk to you guys about making time for what’s important to you.

Now, I didn’t have the best childhood. I’ve talked about a few of the reasons for that in previous blogs, and I’m not going to rehash them today. That’s not the point here.

The point is that…it screwed me up. A lot.

All the trauma, the social anxiety, the depression, and the crippling OCD combined to make me feel…worthless.

Worse than worthless.

So, I didn’t really have any real dreams for myself. I wanted to be financially stable and have a stable relationship. That was about it.

I did all my school work and got good grades so no one would be concerned about me (because, for whatever reason, good grades equates to good mental health in the eyes of our school systems. To me it meant a way to keep people from asking questions). I followed the rules for the same reason.

I didn’t want anyone’s attention, be it positive (I didn’t feel like I deserved it) or negative (I couldn’t stand the thought of being a bigger disappointment than I already thought I was).

After high school, I went to college because any kid with good grades (or, in my generation, almost any kid) is expected to go. And I couldn’t be a disappointment.

I liked english and art, but I couldn’t bear the thought of having to explain what I would possibly use the degree for. The criticism would be too much.

I also liked psychology. I didn’t realize at the time how much of that was a need to understand myself and my own childhood, but it didn’t matter.

Because no one questions a psych major. No one asks, “What will you possibly use that degree for?” Instead, they say, “Let me know when you’re out of school. I know some people who need to come see you.”

A cheesy laugh follows, and the conversation moves to a different topic.

Basically, it was the perfect major for keeping people happy.

But…then I had some health problems senior year, and the doctors couldn’t figure it out. They were tossing around the big ones…cancer, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis…

And I thought about what I wanted out of life.

And it wasn’t the life of a therapist. I didn’t (still don’t) want to listen to the aftermath of traumatic events, day in and day out. I didn’t want to lie awake in bed wondering if something I said or didn’t say would be the breaking point, the straw that broke the camel’s back…the thing gone wrong that made a client kill themself. I didn’t want to spend every second outside of the office writing up notes on the day’s sessions.

So I didn’t. The doctors found a bunch of little manageable shit, rather than one big problem, and I stopped applying to graduate schools.

Even then, I didn’t dare dream of writing for a living. I just wanted to get a job, marry my then-boyfriend/now-husband, get a house, and live my life.

It took a couple more years of steadily working on myself to realize that…I deserved to have a dream, to have something to work toward.

Even then, I never thought of writing for a living as being attainable. It was just a pipe dream that I thought about occasionally, but didn’t put any faith in.

I thought myself worth having a dream, but not worth attaining it. So I didn’t really…try.

But if you don’t try to attain your dream, it’s guaranteed not to happen. If I never wrote a word, never edited a single page, I wouldn’t just wake up one day, a stay-at-home writer. That isn’t how it works.

But now, I’m trying. I’m working toward it. When I’m at home, I devote chunks of time to writing/editing. When my husband drives us to work, I post to my author pages. When I drive, I post on break. On my other breaks, I work on designs for book merch book or cover ideas. I stay up late to work on my blog, even after getting off of a 12 hour shift in steel toes on concrete floors…

Because I want this.

And I finally feel like…maybe I deserve it. Not because I’m special. But because I’m a person, and people deserve to be happy, and writing makes me happy.

So, anyone reading this, please, just know that you deserve to be happy. You deserve to have a dream, and you deserve to have something to work toward.

Whether it’s writing, or running a kickass book review blog, or becoming a therapist, or working a job that allows you to go home and actually be present at home…Whatever it is, you deserve to do what makes you happy.

You’ll probably have to work for it, especially if it’s writing. This isn’t the easiest field to go into, that’s for sure. (Hence, me keeping my day job indefinitely, because mortgage companies expect to be paid whether you’re living your dream, or not. Lol.)

Now, go out there, and be yourself. Live for you. You’re not going to be happy hiding who you are, or pretending that what you want doesn’t matter as long as everyone else is happy.

There are limits here, obviously. Still pay your bills. I don’t want anyone saying, “I took your advice, and my house got repossessed.” You still have to work to pay your bills. Lmao.

But it’s okay to have a goal beyond that.

Anyway.

Keep reading. Keep writing.

Later.