I am a writer.
I know that you probably know that, either through our existing connection or because you read it in my profile, and that it may in fact be part of the reason you’re here in the first place, but I still like to say it. I like to feel the words in my mouth before I say them. I like to press the keys, a little loud, a little jubilant, as I claim something that had been lost to me.
You see, I’ve always been a writer. I don’t remember a time before writing. When I was small, I used to spend the day at my grandparents’ bookkeeping business where they kept the supplies they used to self-publish my grandmother’s novels even in the early 90s, when that was a destiny very few people took for themselves. I wrote my first story on her typewriter, and they used a ring binder intended for… I don’t know, taxes, probably… to bind it into a book, with blank pages so I could draw pictures.
I was immediately hooked. I wrote stories all through elementary school and junior high. I had spiral notebooks full of sketched ideas and starts-of-plots in high school. I daydreamed about being a successful writer and seeing my books in print. I went to college and studied playwriting and fiction in Chicago, refining my skills by producing just… a ton of pages, on command. The blank page held no terror for me, because I was perfectly equipped to wrangle it into submission.
And then I didn’t.
Somewhere between “struggling to pay rent” and “having a baby,” I stopped writing. I don’t know when it was exactly, but by the time I got to grad school I was producing very little that wasn’t academic work, and even that was often painfully completed while the deadline came down on my head. I struggled to connect the person I had been, a fresh-faced writer with a thousand novel ideas and a notebook in her purse, with the person I had become: somebody’s mom.
This isn’t a letter about motherhood. Well, it is, and it isn’t. It isn’t a letter about my own mom, or Ginny, or even the dire circumstances of my own journey to motherhood (we can talk about all that later…). This is, instead, a letter about the sort of self-mothering you have to do when you have a dream. Not just a goal, or an idea, or a fleeting fancy, but the really hardcore “wish your heart makes” sort of dream.
As a person with a heart-dream, I face the balancing act of being a creator but also being a person. I don’t know anybody who has this down, by the way, so if you’re also a creator and you are thinking, “Ha. Yeah. Me too.” then like, don’t worry? Because we’re all not good at this. Because it’s impossible, right? You have this vast, incredible thing that calls to your soul and gives you a reason to live and stuff… but you also have to eat. You have to sleep and pay bills and touch grass and do fun stuff to keep your brain enriched. You have to improve yourself, not just your craft, but also your craft! If you’re trying to sell your creation, at some point there’s also all of that to learn: branding, marketing, building an audience, and consistently showing up for them. And for many of us, this isn’t even how we make our money, and we have to have some other job to keep our households afloat.
It’s exhausting!
As a creator, as a writer, something I think about a lot is how to feed the beast inside my brain in just the right way, so that words come out instead of too-big feelings. As a mother, I do the same thing to help Jack (my now-thirteen-year-old!) as he grows and faces tougher challenges with fewer resources to support him. Instead of thinking about forcing our brains and bodies to comply (miserable, boring, seems overwhelming even though it’s mundane), we must instead bend reality to our will.
That sounds crazy, I know, but listen: every day that I get up and write instead of lying in bed scrolling through my horrible Twitter timeline, I’ve bent reality toward my heart. I’ve created space for myself to thrive. I’ve edited what could have been—a morning that would see me in bed for an extra hour but result in no extra rest or peace—and formed a reality where I have made progress. It doesn’t even have to be “good” progress, because truly, how much “good” does it require to beat “I laid in bed and made myself upset”?
Not super good, honestly!
Now I know here you might be thinking, “Making yourself get out of bed to go write isn’t changing reality; it’s just making yourself do the thing with a different mindset.” But let me change reality for you: any timeline in which I made a different choice alters the flow of my life, and while “Make yourself do the thing” can be a struggle (as anyone who’s ever developed a habit knows), telling myself, “If I choose to get up and write, I can create a new reality” is the kind of awe-inspiring nurturing that is required for heart-dreams.
It also contains a really important word: “If.”
Heart-dreams aren’t a choice. We don’t choose to stumble upon a passion with the idea that we’re going to develop it into our deepest desire. If we did, I think probably none of us would do that. Instead, our hearts find dreams all on their own, and the choice we get is whether or not to fulfill them.
(Aside: if you don’t think you have a heart-dream, I’d challenge you to sit with the idea for a while and see what comes up. If you had no other calls on your time or energy, what would you most like to do with your life? If you could do anything, what would it be? The answer might surprise you.)
Every day that I choose to nurture my heart-dream is a day that I’ve changed the reality in which I am a helpless bystander in the face of capitalism, bigotry, illness, and educational technology. Every day that I find another reason to create, I am bending the existing world to meet my deepest needs. Any mother worth her salt would tell you that she would move mountains if she needed to for her children. In the same way, I move the mountain of what is, and bend reality toward what could be: a world in which all my needs are met, and all I have to worry about is remembering to have lunch while creating to my heart’s content.
It is easier for me to think that I could move all of space and time, sometimes, than it is to get out of bed. But fortunately, I am very strong and powerful, and I can create a reality where getting out of bed isn’t so bad at all when I get to greet the day and move toward my dreams.
Bend reality today, friends—if not for yourself, then for the little kid inside you who needs someone to move a mountain. Bend reality toward your heart, and revel in the choice you get to make there. You deserve to be your fullest, truest, best self, and the rest of us deserve that you, too.
xoxo,
Anne
Wow--what a thrill to see your name on a Substack -- and to see you also have a substack!
It's fantastic to see you--and I look forward to reading more here and your fiction.
OMG! I'm fighting tears after reading this. They say good writers connect with their readers. Well, you just put on a master class! I’m stoked to go out move mountains!