Getting your driver’s license (in the USA) marks the beginning of independence. Before I was sixteen, I could hardly wait to gain control of the driver’s seat. Maybe I should have been scared of navigating a giant metal object down the road, but I wasn’t (well, sometimes I was).
I passed my driver’s test the second go-around (nerves will get you).
As my dad and I drove back home, he might have asked me how I felt. I don’t remember the conversation, but I do recall the realization that gripped me hard. I’d just accomplished a big thing, but on the other side of the big thing, new big things overwhelmed me.
Deep sigh.
Bigger and badder things always lurk around the next corner. It’s overwhelming, but it’s also life. You overcome one, and what used to be insurmountable passes into the training ground category. On to the next thing.
But sometimes, you don’t see the bigger and badder thing coming right behind the dream!
Since November, I’ve been watching a long-held dream unfurl. Dreams are funny things, aren’t they? Some don’t remain long past sleep while others become sinister mid-dream. And then,… dreams can die, too. And that’s awful, but new dreams rise from what seemed to be ashes.
Eight years ago, a writing dream began.
I wanted to write something and have it be published, and I did. A ghost-written story about a friend was published in an unpublished-writers magazine. That. Was. Cool. And it was also the last time something of mine was published in paper and ink.
Right around that time, a character introduced herself. Her name started with “J” and she was obsessed with teal paisley tights. She cracked me up. She was spontaneous, artistic, a people-pleaser. And well, I just wanted to spend time with her. Just like that, a story began (with the marvelous help of my writing professor, Kim Peterson).
When that story reached book length, I started hoping to see this book in print. Once a publisher said yes, it would be cotton candy and sprinkles.
Years passed. I hired a writing coach (shout out to Sandra Byrd), and I kept slogging away. I attended writing conferences. I traveled the world. But, in the back corner of my heart, I hoped that one day this story would be published.
When Vinspire Publishing plucked my story from their submission contest, I was shocked. Like most, I’d already received my fair amount of rejections (I’ve got a file folder entitled “Risk Nothing, Win Nothing”). Vinspire Publishing wanted to publish Teal Paisley Tights.
On the other side of the publishing dream loomed a bigger and badder thing: failure.
As soon as I signed that contract with Vinspire Publishing, fear stomped into my world, flinging around unanswerable questions with no controllable solutions. The “what ifs” circled my head with the ferocity of angry wasps.
I hadn’t expected that.
And I don’t like to name that fear of failure, but somehow it feels better to use this post as an honest (yet public) journal entry.
Here I stand, breathlessly watching a dream expand before my eyes while my fears darken the skies overhead… have I always lived life so lightheaded?
And yet. And yet.
“He has not brought you this far to let go of you yet.” My coworker pointed up to the sky. I believe she is right. My God started this (He made me), and He’ll carry me through.
So though, bigger and badder things line up behind my dreams, I’m not in this alone. I never was before, and I’ll never be in the future. God is here, and He gives community too. Just as friends helped me brainstorm this book and other friends helped me write it and more friends still helped me edit and still more friends can hardly wait to read Teal Paisley Tights, I’m am not alone. And neither are you.
He has not brought you this far to let go of you yet.
