DAY 10. HOPES

First, list the hopes you had in life as you pursued your mission.

Then, choose one or two hopes and write a few paragraphs about why you had that hope, how you fulfilled it or did not fulfill it, and how you felt.

 

Examples

To be a successful teacher

To be well-liked by students

To have many good friends

To marry and have children

To have children who are successful and well-educated

To own a house and live in a suburban neighborhood

To own a second home at the beach

To write best-selling novels

To have some of my novels become movies

To make videos and films

 

           

I chose education as my major because I had just such a great time in high school. When I was planning my college courses, I realized that I felt most comfortable in a school setting. As it turned out, I became a teacher, had varied experiences in different teaching settings, and enjoyed a thirty-five year career as an educator.

           

The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was myself. I was very shy about standing in front of a group and talking, so obviously teaching would be a challenge. The first experiences with teaching came when I had to teach a class of my college peers as part of an education methods course. Though we were all in it together and I should have realized that I was facing a friendly audience, I wasn’t that trusting. Nerves and anxiety bothered me in the days and nights leading up to my presentation. My biggest fear was not being able to fill the twenty-minutes of time I was allotted. So I overprepared. While that isn’t always bad, in this case it was because I weighted the front of the lesson with too much which left me no time to wrap it up. On the plus side, thinking I had plenty and would not be left stuttering for something to say, I wasn’t nervous once I started.

 

I survived that instance and many others like it. Eventually I became a teacher and felt comfortable in front of a group of teens as well as their parents at Back-to-School Nights and my colleagues in professional development presentations.

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Writing a best-selling novel had been my dream since I graduated from college. By profession I was an English teacher. But I thought I could write on the side and in the summer. So I began, and little by little I wrote stories and chapters for a novel. I enjoyed creating characters, situations, and conflicts and pounding away on my portable typewriter before the age of computers and word processing. Often I would base my fiction on the real people and events I lived every day. It was a release.

Unfortunately real life intruded. I had bills to pay, so I picked up part-time work. My writing time was cut. Then I got married and had children.

 

Forty years from the time I first sat down and typed my opening lines, I finished the story. It was very different now. In forty years I had experiences and met people and was exposed to a changing world and it all changed my story. But I wrote it.

 

Writing this time was therapy. I had just retired from teaching, the last two years of which had been hell with a crazy principal and confusing relationships with colleagues and friends. In five months I completed the first draft. In the next ten months, with a month break, I revised and revised and revised. Through it all, I relived those last two years and by writing it all down I also let it all out. Finally my story was finished and ready for publishing.

 

I decided to go the self-publishing route after finding no other takers. So for $178 I could publish it as an e-book. I worked to get it formatted and complete the final steps. I pressed SUBMIT. And I started to have regrets.

 

I feared that in my writing therapy I might have been unkind and hurtful to that principal and more importantly to colleagues and friends. I had buyer’s remorse, or should it be seller’s remorse. I didn’t want to cause any pain or embarrassment, and I also didn’t want to get sued. So I pulled it. It cost me $99, the amount the self-publishing company charged for the e-book setup. I was refunded $78, the amount they charged for distribution. But it was well worth it. As my husband said, “You have to go with your gut.” And though I had some misgivings, my gut said publishing was not a good idea.

So, I still have the finished book. Maybe someday.

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