Ever had a dream you’ve wanted so badly and for so long that when anything happened where it might come true and made you more upset then when nothing happened? I was eight years old when I knew I wanted to be a published author someday. It has been twenty eight years since then and it just finally happened last year!
While preparing for my first novel’s launch I recall the curious event where I had gotten back both my cover artwork and interior formatting from my designer. That should have been a moment of huge celebration for me. I’d seen how excited so many authors were the first time they got their cover art back. But I just couldn’t celebrate it. It was twenty seven years in the making at that point, and that is a long, long time to hope for something. People want you to celebrate the victories along the way. But The thing is, I understood those twenty seven years of “no” or “not yet.” I knew how to desensitize myself to that kind of rejection. But the fear of getting so close after almost three decades, just to have something break it apart at the last second-I had no buffer for that kind of pain. It took everything in my being to not crawl in a hole and shut down. But I couldn’t, because I still had to market it and a million other things.
They say necessity is the mother of invention but I feel that she also births persistence. I wanted to just quit, SO many times. There are still occasions I just want to run away. But the mantra I’ve come to repeat myself is “Nothing will change if you don’t do something.” See, not having the dream alive and breathing is a deep sort of torture. If I don’t make myself take the hard, excruciating, terrifying steps forward then I’m just doomed to stay within that torture’s clutches forever. I couldn’t bear to live a life wondering “what if?” And yet when things began to piece themselves together the panic that blew up within was one that I had not frame of reference for.
I’ll be honest, there are quite a few times on this journey where the only thing I can handle is to take a few days to numb my mind by watching various videos online and make absolutely no progress on my stories or other creative projects. That comes from a places of insane overwhelm and consistently feeling out of my depth that I just have to disconnect or implode entirely. Then comes the inner gnawing in my gut that I must get up and do something again, because “Nothing will change if I don’t do something.”
The thing is, this fear that I’ve experienced, it never really goes away. Doubts remain constant and the battle is harsh. I wonder if there will be a point in which things just “click” and these feelings ease up. Or if this is just forever a part of the battles that I undergo to keep my heart alive. It’s not an easy place to be but there is a deep rooted part within myself that just won’t let it go, and so I must continue to look these fears in the eyes.