Never give up on your dreams,the poster in the guidance counselor's officeinsists, sun-faded and curling at the cornerslike my thirty-year plan to writethe Great American Novel.Today I'm throwing it a retirement party—sheet cake from Costco,box wine, the works.
Guest list: everyone who asked"how's the book coming?" at holidays.The notebooks full of Chapter Ones.The MacBook that overheated with ambition.My twenties, who RSVP'd "can't make it—we're already gone."The debt that funded the MFAsends a card: "Best wisheson your future endeavors."
The speeches are honest:"Remember when you quit that jobto focus on writing? We lived on ramenand possibility for six months.You were unbearable and glorious.""Remember the agent who almost—the contest you nearly—the year everything might have—"We toast to almosts. They earned it.
Never give up sounds nobleuntil you price the cost of never:the relationships that starvedwhile you fed the dream.The promotions you passed,certain success was coming.The therapist who gently suggestedmaybe the dream was keeping youfrom living your life.
But here's what makes it a party,not a funeral: the dream did its job.It got me through my twenties,gave me purpose in the drift.Taught me discipline, rejection,the taste of my own ambition.It introduced me to the writer I became—not novelist, but the woman who writesbirthday cards that make people cry,work emails that get things done,grocery lists that are basically poetryif you've learned to see it.
The dream gives a final toast:"To all the dreams that knewwhen to let their dreamers go.To the grace of changing shape.To the book that never got writtenbut to all the life that got lived instead."
We eat the cake. It's perfect—sweet, simple, enough for everyone,gone by morning. Nothing published,nothing permanent, nothing that lastsexcept this: the freedom of a Sundaywithout the weight of should-be-writing.The space where the dream livedfilling up with something gentler.
Never give up on your dreams?Sometimes the bravest thingis to throw them the party they deserve,then let them drive away,honking the horn one last timebefore disappearing into the trafficof what actually happened.