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The Headaches of a Dream Come True

Rat-a-tat-ta-tat. The sound echoes from behind the closed patio doors clear at the opposite end of the house. A headache pulses in my temples. No dream comes without a few headaches.

Case in point: my dream patio

One day we were talking to a landscape designer who was giving us the brush-off. After all, we waited until the middle of his busy season to ask for a design and a quote.

A few weeks later, a designer is sitting at our dining room table talking about payment plans.

Because a nearly 600 square foot patio of paving stones doesn’t fit the under-$10,000 budget we had for the project. Because dreams are costly. But that’s a subject for another post.

A week went by with nothing. Then everything snowballed and the work crew was showing up the next day – a full week before the original start date.

The first thing to go is the old patio.

Just like our life, if we want to start a new career or new hobby or new healthy lifestyle, we have to get rid of the old. It’s not enough to keep the card-making supplies in the back of the closet now that you’re into quilting. As long as they’re there to fall back on, you’ll be tempted to quit on quilting if it gets too difficult.

The workers needed a jackhammer to break down the less-than-100-square-foot cement patio. And it took them nearly two full days to render it into pieces small enough to recycle as gravel bedding beneath our new stone.

That’s the noise you heard at the beginning of this post.

And it gave me a headache. It made concentrating on writing difficult.

Because anything worth having will involve some uncomfortable episodes.

Clearing out the old is a messy process too.

PatioRubble

Our outdoor cat shied away from the rubble when he came in for his food that night. The next morning, he waited atop one of the flat pieces to be let in for breakfast.

It’s great when we can recycle the old into the new, but most of the time it needs to be hauled off to the dump.

Second case in point: my dream of a writing contract (for a novel)

I’m still waiting to hear back from the publisher on the novel I submitted in May.

A vein popped in my forehead as I typed that.

Say_What

The editor whose been my go-between with the publisher sent word that the publisher hasn’t even opened my manuscript. It’s on the top of the slush pile, though. The first order of business come August will be reading the manuscript so she can give me an answer.

Oh, it’s already August you say? Well then I should hear any day now.

My heart hurts as it expects a “no.” My head pounds out all sorts of platitudes that make my skull feel like a too-tight screw.

In a few weeks, I’ll post pictures of my dream patio (minus the fire pit, water feature, and lighted gardens which will come later). The days of taking ibuprofen and hiding out far from the patio doors won’t even be remembered.

Because a dream attained is worth the pain.

What dream is giving you headaches right now? Take a moment to imagine yourself on the pinnacle of attaining it. What do you see?

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