Pipe Dreams and Brick Walls

Here's the thing, I have always wanted to be a writer. Convincing myself that I would either have to write sappy love stories (Of course, set along the beaches of the Carolinas) or vampirical teen romance novels (complete with a profoundly weak female protagonist) to earn any money, I only partially invested any sort of energy into the actual idea of making it happen. Take for example the random pieces (such as this) that I post from time to time. 

Here's how it starts: I get an idea. I toy with it for a few weeks. It tumbles around in my head along with the bills, my children's activities, my job teaching, my soapbox moments on Facebook, my husband's company, Duncan Donuts tea, and the Walking Dead reruns. Finally, after it keeps nagging at me to get out, I have a moment of brilliance! I see the words forming on the page. The piece takes on a life of its own! I experience the single most intellectually gratifying moment of my life! My fingers move across the keys with accuracy, as if they've known what to type my whole life! A word wizard! The lines begin to sing their song to me! With each line I pen, the letters twist to form sentences that I had no idea I was even capable of writing! And then, with the final punctuation in place, the moment is gone...as if it never even happened. And the beautiful, melodious lines fail to connect to anything beyond that single period. 

A brick wall. 

Over the years, I have crafted a collection of wonderful characters in my mind. I perfected their histories and scripted their secrets. My mind has played their stories over and over until I could not separate their memories from my own. I lived vicariously through their adventures, and, when they were finally ready to reveal themselves to the pages of my notebook, I filed them under "Pipe Dreams" and packed them all away. 

The reality is that I have always and will always do this. I am always "working" a story in my mind. I see something happen in my own life and the very first thought I have is "that would make a great storyline." It is a burden to look at life and always be searching for the story.

Seeking.  

So, Langston Hughes, what really does happen to a dream deferred? I'm fairly certain it doesn't dry up like a raisin in the sun or explode...I'm pretty sure it collects interest like a student loan. Nagging, accruing interest. Every day, every single day, my dream deferred is accruing interest at about 6.5% compounded daily. And I have been spreading my payments out for the last 30 yrs towards my 90 yr pay off. 

I make my payments in the form of thoughts of what could be, thoughts of what should be, and thoughts about what is. And each day, when I make my payment, my heart wishes it never took the loan out. I wish I never would have written the first word. I wish I didn't know what it felt like to breathe life into these figments of my imagination. I wish my soul didn't know the pain of not knowing what could happen next. I wish I had never felt my heartbeat quicken with the thought of a "perfect ending"... to an unsung tale. 

Some people collect coins, some people collect cars or sports cards or whatnots; I collect stories. I find them, invent them, raise and nurture them. I imagine all the possibility they hold. And then... I sit them on the shelves of the recesses of my mind...between "What could be" and "What is." And there they will sit, collecting dust, until the day I forget the were ever even real.