Live Your Dream Life with Passion and Purpose

I’ve been thinking about how to share this story with you. This morning, I woke up inspired to just share the whole thing and let you sift through the various ins and outs. Those of you who email me seems to like my long, rambling stories the most so here we go. I’ve written dribs and drabs of this… here’s the whole thing. Here’s to dreams!

When I was a senior in high school, I took a Creative Writing class with Mr. Bob Reed at R.L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth, Texas. For those of you who don’t know Ft. Worth, Paschal is a few blocks from Texas Christian University and our school colors were purple and white, just like TCU. Paschal is one of the oldest high schools in Fort Worth and it is situated in a historical area full of beautiful tudor-style, modern and traditional houses. I love the area because there are so much mature landscaping, including many old oak trees.

My senior year, I was dating a crazy guy…I broke up with him, but he was stalking me. So, the last six weeks of my senior year, I packed everything up, transferred to a school in Abilene, Texas (where I was born and also where my step dad’s parents lived) to finish the year.

Now, way back then, I won’t lie to you. I was all about working (as in J.O.B.), not school work. I was relentlessly bored in school and showed up just enough to play tennis, do my extracurricular activities and take the tests so I could stay in Honor Society. 

Mr. Reed gave me an ultimatum. I had already missed entering my short story in the Tarrant County Junior College writing contest. Apparently Mr. Reed thought my short story, Mary Jane, which was about a little country tom girl who was in ‘like’ with her little friend, would be a contender. One of my classmates won first place in that contest I had not even entered. He told me he would drop my grade a letter if I didn’t enter my story in the next one – the TCU writing contest.

At 4:56 pm, the day it was due by 5:00 pm, I ran up the front sidewalk as fast as I could hoping I could still get the entry in. I didn’t care about the contest, I just wanted to work, I wanted to be free and do my own thing and I just wanted to get on to college. I was already going to junior college part-time. Oh, and I needed to get packed to try to get away from Mr. Stalker! I had enough to do without worrying about some contest.

I ended up running into a very helpful person who pointed me to the right office and I slid the envelope under the door just in time (literally).

I was in school in Abilene when I received a package letting me know that I had won first place. My story was printed in the newsletter with the other winners. I don’t even think I cared at the time because my attention was so far out into the future. I certainly wasn’t present. Isn’t life ironic?

When I graduated from high school, I came back to graduation ceremonies and could breathe a sign of relief because my crazy boyfriend enlisted in the Army and was shipped off. Good-bye Mr. Stalker!

I am not sure I even took the time to acknowledge my writing, my love of writing or even consider I might be able to do something in writing. For me, freedom meant money and the sooner I had more money, the faster I could get to the freedom I so desperately desired.

I initially enrolled in school for business (that’s where the money is, right?), and dabbled in the idea of journalism, but quickly rejected it once I found out how much journalists make. Ditto for teaching, which I thought would be so fun to teach kids. Ah, to go back and know what I know now!

I made my mark in business, got two degrees along the way, created a very successful consulting practice, but something still was off. True, I have been writing most of my business career – and helping many people make a lot of money with my writing – from proposals that sell, to newsletters that connect businesses to businesses, to sales letters with huge returns, to reports that convey a unique message that speaks to the heart – I’ve been writing.

Then, one day, this Queen of Dreams character came along. She was fun, she was spunky, she was me before I started focusing on the world and making my way in it! About two years after this cartoon came to mind, I received a TCU Continuing Education catalog in the mail. I found it interesting as I had never received one before nor have I received on since. I looked and there were some writing classes, and I felt pulled to attend two of them.

I signed up, sent in the check and waited for the day to arrive. When I drove to TCU (by the way, the area around TCU, which is known as TCU hill, is one of my favorite places in the world! I love Fort Worth), I felt different. I felt this amazing energy of magic in the air. When I drove through the campus, I looked over at the sidewalk where I had sprinted decades before hoping to save my grade.

The class was fun, but I knew I wasn’t there for the class. I had taken myself there to remember what I knew way back then. That I am a writer. That I love to write. That I am a talented writer. As I walked along the campus, I felt happy and alive. I felt a magical electricity in the air. It seemed to whisper, You can do this.

Many other books and movies echoed that idea to my heart repeatedly. It is only in hindsight that I can see them so clearly. Movies such as Miss Potter held me entranced in the idea of writing as an occupation. I understood what it meant to have a character talk to you. That’s what writers do. I seemed to be stumbling over writer after writer who dared to dream and, more importantly, write. Po Bronson showed up. He had lived in the maze and dared to write meaningful books on his own terms, in his own way.

At times, I felt pulled to attend a writers’ workshop the teacher mentioned during that TCU writing class. I didn’t go. I made excuses. There’s a deafening silence that your heart makes when it quits whispering. I noticed the silence. The quiet reserve of, “I’ll wait for you.”

In the meantime, I published two books – books I wrote as much for myself as for others; wrote two others and authored more articles, blog entries and other business writings than I can even keep track of. I also learned how to love myself, how to acknowledge myself without wincing inside, how to be vulnerable without withering within and how to compassionately love others as myself. It’s been a busy time of growth and introspection. I’ve been growing into myself.

I realize now, two years ago, despite all of the outward encouragement (from Jan, my book publishing consultant “You have something really special,” from many publishers who requested my manuscript, from reviewers who loved my book, the reminder of the TCU award and the others I won in school, and so many more it would be quite embarrassing to list them!) that I simply didn’t feel I had the goods. What was I waiting for?

I have known for a long time we can’t ‘give’ to someone what must come from within. For me, I had to decide to make the trek from my head to my heart. I had to leap and have faith the net would appear.

And, so I have.

I can share with you that your big dream will feel really, really, possibly humongously big! It doesn’t feel like an accomplishment goal does, which, for me, feels like getting in a car and driving to a destination. In that place, I feel I can never rest. It’s always go, go, go. The next thing, the next thing, it’s never ending. It’s exhausting to me.

For me, the waking dream feels big, wide, lush like a valley. It feels like a place you go to live in, not a place you visit before rushing off to another destination (goal). It feels like coming home. It feels magical. It feels like everything you will create is already done. It has the feeling I’ve been searching for my entire life – a place where I can rest and know I’m just where I’m supposed to be.

I recently read an article about a woman who wrote about her experience with this. She is a writer, and as soon as she published her first novel, she knew it wasn’t ‘home.’ It took her NINE books before she found her valley. Now, she is happily creating from that place. I read that, and thought, ‘That’s just how life is… we create as we go and as we create, we get clearer and clearer, fine-tuning along the way.’

The most important thing is to let your heart roam so it can guide you home.

So, what’s your juicy dream? The one that you haven’t let see the light of day?