Unrealized Dreams

One of my dreams was to live in a city. I don’t know why I was fixated on a life in the city. Maybe it was because of the movies I watched growing up. Or maybe it was the idea of something so different from the small town I grew up in.

Now here on the farm, the furthest from city life I could imagine, I see one old dream coming to life under my fingertips. As a kid, I dreamed of becoming a writer and author. I spent my childhood with my head in a book, stories running through my head. I filled notebooks and journals with words and created a family “newspaper” with my cousins in the summer. We dug out my grandma’s old typewriter and I typed up stories about our pets and silly other things I found amusing as a 10-year-old. In the basement of my childhood house, I plunked away on our gigantic home computer. I wrote a story of a girl named Cassie, with an annoying younger sister. (Sometimes fiction is best drawn from real life. Sorry, Sister.) I’m not sure what happened to that story, or what happened to Cassie or her sister. 

The dream of becoming a writer went by the wayside somewhere between high school and college. In college, I spent a year as a journalism major, taking courses that were geared toward becoming a reporter. The classes didn’t leave me inspired and I changed my major (more than once). I finished my degree, doing the required reports and papers, but never writing for fun. 

A few years ago, I was at Taco Bell with my two oldest kids. Allie was a baby, and Rhett was a toddler. An older woman approached me and said, “You’re a brave mom for being out in public with him.” I can’t even remember what he was doing, but if I were to guess, it would be running around and standing on the chairs, instead of sitting down and eating. 

Her comment took root in my head, but not in a way that made me feel bad about my parenting. Or him. She wasn’t telling me anything new—I knew I had a wild child on my hands. Her sweet-natured comment did make me want to go home and write about it. Write how it made me feel, how at first I had been nervous when a stranger approached me. How I felt when she added that her own son had been the same way. Here she was, alone at lunch, while I was juggling two young kids—the sight of me and my kids taking her down memory lane. I hadn’t felt the urge to write in years. Probably since I was in middle school.

I went home and wrote the story out. After a while, I gained enough nerve to submit it. I didn’t tell anyone, including Rich, that I had even written anything. I especially didn’t want to tell anyone I had submitted it for publication. If it was rejected, then I wouldn’t have to admit it to anyone. It would be like it never even happened. A couple of weeks later, I received an acceptance email. That yes was a big nudge to lean into my old dream of writing. 

Farm life is full of stories. From Rich referencing cows while I was pregnant, to the kids learning about farming and ranching—from the front seat of a tractor to the back of a horse. Everywhere I look, there are stories waiting to be told. 

Years ago, I thought I was giving up my dreams to marry a farmer. I knew I had to choose. And I happily chose to marry the person I loved for a life I didn’t know. 

But in reality, this life and this farm, brought me back to a forgotten dream. A dream I hadn’t thought of in years. A dream I imagine might still be tucked away if I were climbing the corporate ladder, with no time for writing in the margins. 

This life allows me to put pencil to paper and create cities from words, and capture memories and stories of my family—from the most unlikely place I could have dreamed of. 

***this post was inspired by a writing prompt from Rhythm on ‘unrealized dreams’.***