When someone else is living your dream…

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My idea of my ultimate “dream life” has changed many times throughout the years. When I was a kid, my biggest dream was to become a succesful author. I was gonna write my first book by the age of 18, take a long education, get married to a wonderful man in my late twenties- early thirties, have two children – a girl and a boy – and live in a nice house with a backyard, with a view of the sea, and have a dog. Even though I was scared of dogs until I was around 17, I was that into this dream of mine. I don’t remember foreseeing any issues with this dream coming true. Except from finding the wonderful man part; I was never popular growing up, and boys didn’t really pay positive attention to me until high school.

That dream stuck with me for many, many years. It wasn’t challenged until the depressions started, and only challenged for real when I got together with Miki, my old boyfriend, whom I met at university. He was very against marriage and having children – that was definitely not on his vision board. Adding to that, when I was diagnosed with bipolar, and told that statistically there is a 10% chance you pass it on to your child, I decided that I was not going to have kids, ever. Except I go by the rule of “never say never,” meaning that I am not all knowing, and there is no way I could ever predict whether I’d meet someone one day that might change my mind.

When I was in high school, I slowly stopped writing creatively. There was so much school work, so many papers, and, just like it happened with painting and drawing, it kinda slipped away from me. It’s like anything else that needs practice; if you stop practicing, eventually you’re no longer good. And I was good, very good, if I may say so myself. This felt like a big defeat for me. This was my dream! I was supposed to have written my first book by the age of 18! Why couldn’t I just write that damn book??? Why was I not published yet?

I knew a girl who’d had a novel published (partially paid for publication herself), and it was so bad. It was as if no editor had even glanced at it. And she’d built it up for so long, done so much advertising, being a “16-year-old publishing her first book!” And I read it. And I had such a hard time getting through it. Mutual friends who hadn’t read it yet thought I was exaggerating, assuming I was just jealous. Then they read it. And apologized to me.

How… how did that crap get published for all to read? How? I could have written something ten times as good!

Only problem was, I didn’t. I didn’t write a book. And, to this day, at the age of 27, I still haven’t.

Bipolar changed me, as it would anyone. Not just mentally, but also physically. I’m spending time and energy just getting by a lot of the time, trying to make sense of life, trying my best to stay stable and optimistic. Concentration is hard. Motivation, not really there. I kind of know what I want to do – no, not kinda, I know. I want to be an editor. I want to read manuscripts and choose the good ones and edit them. And I want to be a private tutor. That’s what I want to do. Yet, I don’t feel ready to pursue these things.

Last week, I discovered something. An old friend of mine is basically living my dream. I haven’t had any contact with him for years, but we have a mutual friend who told me about how he’s been doing. So, he’s not yet 30, has a child with his girlfriend (!), has written and published 6 novels (!), has had a ton of short stories published in different anthologies, and he translates novels for a living. Oh, and he writes poetry and occasionally peforms spoken word.

I was shook.

I couldn’t believe it. Here I am, with no money to my name, no publications (except a few short stories from when I did a writers course in 2008 and another in 2009,) no marriage, no house, no children, no dog, no job, and have been on sick leave for more than a year now. And he’s out there, living the life I was supposed to have. I felt like a complete failure.

Then I had to check myself. Because he and I are not the same. Our stories are not the same. Our struggles and succeses in life cannot and should not be compared or measured against each other. My priorities are not the same as his. I’m so not ready for kids or marriage. I’ve probably had hundreds of amazing experiences that he hasn’t; I’ve been to places he has not, both mentally and physically. We live in the same world, but we are living very different lives and have taken very different paths. Our paths are not meant to be similar.

I might write a book one day, and I might not. I don’t know what the future holds for me. What I do know is this: I am where I am because this is where life, decisions – good and bad, events, and experiences have lead me. I am where I am, and all I can do is continue to move forwards, evolve, and try to find a path that brings meaning and a sense of purpose to my life. I’m creating new dreams now.

There’s no point in getting stuck and holding on to past aspirations that no longer apply to me. Things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would – and that’s absolutely fine.