I must be a writer, at least in theory, because I think too much…about everything…to the point of becoming an absentminded fool. I took my oldest to Target two weeks ago and forgot my wallet. The lady at self-checkout put our basket of stuff behind the rack. Returning later we discovered all our things had been picked up by a different employee and put back on the shelves. Yesterday, I took my youngest to the grocery store…and forgot my wallet. Thankfully, upon our return our cart was still next to customer service.
So as you can see my overthinking is affecting my performance in the real world. What do I think about? A better question would be, what don’t I think about. I don’t currently have a job. In fact, I haven’t since I worked as a Reading Tutor before our trip. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve received any wages. My silly plan is to make money by writing a book. Poor Wendy. Most aspiring authors never make it anywhere, their manuscripts, toiled over in agony and euphoric love, merely a door jam or a thick wedge in a slush pile. It is the sad fate of many a book. I often wonder how many gems are sitting in slush piles…or in a drawer in someone’s home, the author having been unable to find an agent or editor.
Did you know that Stephen King worked in a commercial laundry facility while he attempted to make it as a writer? He would often get jabbed with needles that had been wrapped up in bloody sheets from hotels. When he submitted Carrie his agent called him and said that a publishing firm was ready to send him $400,000 as an advance for the paperback rights. He said he slowly slid down the wall to a sitting position with the phone in his hand. His agent had to call his name a few times to break him out of his reverie. He had received over fifty rejections for stories prior.
I suppose, like Michael Jordan, he succeeded because he continued to fail. Success needs failure, after all. MJ has said that, for all his success, he still failed to score the game winning point in over thirty games. John Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was rejected by many publishers until one finally picked it up and agreed to print 5,000 copies. It failed to sell. His second book, The Firm (ever heard of it?), was purchased for $600,000 by a movie production company before it even got a publishing deal. Charles Frazier received over $8 million for an advance on his second book, Thirteen Moons, due to the popularity of Cold Mountain. Random House purportedly lost over 5.5 million on the deal. Point is, you can strike it rich…but I’m no King, or Grisham, or Frazier. But what am I really in this for? Do I want money? Or do I want to simply share a good story? Money would be nice…but to be honest, I think I just want to make a mark of some kind on this world. I wish I could live in obscurity and be happy.
I worry more than ever now. Our wonderful trip seems a distant and fading memory. Teagan is struggling to find her place (to say nothing of me). Wendy has entered a new world in her current school district and is certainly the strongest among us. Ava and Sienna are doing surprisingly well, but often we see the trials and tribulations moving to a new town has wrought.
I watched a video of myself mountain biking on my homemade trail back at our old house in Bailey. The sting of nostalgia was strong. I saw the old house and our beautiful deck. My dog chased along behind while the tall lodgepole pines filtered the sunlight. The grass was green and lush. I passed by our shed; our picnic table; my rock cairn; the slackline, swing, and trampoline. It felt like a dream from a past life. Which, I suppose, it kind of was.
So how do I feel about all this? I should probably get a job, for starters. Maybe I’ll look into commercial laundry? I worry that I am an imposter, possibly the “little brother” syndrome. I have always felt out of my league.
Before our trip, I thought it would be fun and exciting to move to a new town. And, for a while, it was. Now, however, it feels daunting and overwhelming to be starting over. I am almost fifty (Wendy will be this year! gasp), shouldn’t I be peaking? Shouldn’t I be stable and secure, rooted in a community, maturing gracefully, surrounded by friends? I saw a meme that said, “My Friend Circle Over Time.” It showed a collection of people for 2023, a smaller collection of people for 2024 and finally, for 2025, it was just a picture of a bike. Me, to a T.
I know what I should be doing: looking at the positives; thanking my lucky stars for Wendy, Sienna, Ava and Teagan; being grateful that our trip was a success and that no one got hurt and that we managed to reinsert ourselves back into society with a roof over our heads; trying not to think so much; realizing what I have and not worrying about what I don’t. But it’s hard. It makes me realize how big of a sacrifice we made when we left Bailey. And I wouldn’t go back. I don’t regret what we did.
I just haven’t landed on my feet yet.
One more “success needs failure” story before I go. The author Michael Cunningham wrote a book called A Home at the End of the World in 1990. He struggled from then on to sell his agent or editors on another book for close to ten years, and not for want of trying. Apparently, he toiled and struggled with his choices in life. In 1998 he finally published The Hours. How did it do? It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.