Dreaming

One of the greatest joys of being sober is doing shit you never even dreamed of…

I didn’t have such a great imagination when I was drinking. Sure, I could sit on a barstool & tell you I was going to run a marathon the year I turned 30 (even though I’d never run more than 3 consecutive miles in my life). Or that I wanted to be a professor one day (even though I barely finished my Masters’ degree because that shit takes work). Or that I wanted to be a writer (even if I’d stopped writing anything at all because drinking doesn’t leave a lot of time for creative pursuits).

I was good at talking. Not as good at dreaming.

Dreaming gets a bad rap, I think. There’s idle dreaming… the kind you do on a lazy afternoon. More like wishful thinking. And then there’s big dreaming, real dreaming… the kind that catches you unaware and propels you into action before you even realize that you’re planning to take a big risk. Even if you’re not a risk taker. Not even a little bit.

When people ask if owning the bookstore was a lifelong dream… I mean, I hate to burst their bubble and all (they always look so hopeful when they ask…), but no.

Honestly, it was something even better.

It was this random idea on a day when I was leaving the coffeeshop in my neighborhood. I wanted a book. There was nowhere to walk to buy one.

And I thought, “There really should be a bookstore in this neighborhood…”

By the time I got home, it’d turned into “Maybe I should open a bookstore right here, in my neighborhood …”

From conception to reality was just under a year.

Because it was the kind dream that catches you–and you just know it’s right.

Even if you’re not a risk taker. Even if you’ve never dreamed of owning a business. Even if you’re scared to death of signing a commercial lease. Even if…

Things fell into place, one right after another to make this bookstore a reality. Never once did I believe I couldn’t or shouldn’t do it. The Universe pushed me one affirmation after another that YES this was right. That YES this would work. And that, in fact, this was more than a dream. It was a calling.

And none of it would have been possible at all, if I’d kept my head buried at the bottom of a pint glass. Instead, now I’ve got my nose in a book, living just beyond where my wildest dreams used to end.