Dreams

PROMPT: Dreams don’t change. We just pretend that we don’t want them anymore. -Amber McBride, Me (Moth)

Denial, it turns out is not just a river in Egypt. It is an ever-present river that twists and turns as it flows around my brain, dampening the desires of foregone dreams.

Most of the time I don’t even realize it’s there, running through my head, downplaying something that used to matter so much.

But lately that river has slowed, it’s rushing waters no longer softening the edges of who I am and what I want. The clarity that arrived with this ebb, came with a lot of work and something that closely resembles healing. Yet, it has almost been too stark a contrast to lazy river of denial I’ve spent a lot of time floating in the last several years.

As that clarity sharpened the dreams returned. No longer dull to my own desires, I’ve begun to consider not just who I want to be -someday- but who I am, today.

At the end of 2025 I downloaded Ann Patchett’s memoir, entitled, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. I picked it up for many reasons, mostly though, because I love her stories and I wanted to read her story. I’m always fascinated when an author who traditionally writes one genre can branch out and write something else entirely. I am happy to report I was not disappointed.

But more than that-it’s not just that I wasn’t disappointed- I was something else entirely- alive.

I lay in bed each night with my Kindle aglow and read her words on life and writing and I felt the thing I feel when I write. The spark. The buzz. The creativity. And I thought it’s not too late. I’m not too tired or too sad or too old. And even though I have been so consumed with trying not to drown in the river, I have, at least for today, made it safely ashore.

On this shore I’m more present with myself, not swept away by the rushing current; not having to paddle so hard to stay afloat allows some time for creativity, for intention.

Writers write. That’s what Ann told me.

It is with great abandon that I return to the dream of being a writer. Of doing the thing that makes me feel alive, connected, both grounded and aloft.

With my head clear of the river of denial, I have time to dream.