The 40-Year-Old Quitter

I’ve been anticipating forty since the day I turned thirty-nine. It was a milestone in my life where I felt like everything I’d ever wanted to accomplish would be achieved. Forty was where I’d sit back, prop up my feet and say, “Well done. You did it. All of your dreams came true. Congrats and enjoy the ride.”

I mean, I had a plan, and it was a good one so what could possibly prevent that plan from coming to fruition in exactly the way I’d meticulously mapped it out? There are pages and pages about this plan in my journal and the journal doesn’t fail.

Maybe the journal doesn’t fail, but guess what? I do.

I was talking through a particular situation with one of my kids a few weeks ago about their dreams and that maybe the dreams they thought they had were no longer there. They wondered if it was time to quit.

“Quit?” I said. “We don’t quit on our dreams.”

As is typical, nothing can make me feel more like a hypocrite than parenting.

That same day, I looked over at the draft manuscript of the most recent book I’d written. It sat there on my desk in a bright pink binder with pretty dividers, post-it notes identifying areas that needed editing, and a heavy layer of dust. On June 15th, 2015, my husband finished reading the 1st draft of this manuscript, sent me a beautiful note about the odds of getting published (1:50,000 if you’d like to know), and told me how I was going to beat those odds. Instead of taking the next step I knew I needed to take to make my dream come true, I spent the next year preparing my heart and mind to be in the 49,999 instead of the 1.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of being a published Author. Sure, I accomplished a version of that dream in the form of self-publishing, and I told everyone who would listen that it was never about seeing my books on shelves or the number of copies I sold but more about the craft and putting myself out there. I’m also a 40-year-old liar. Of course it was about putting books on shelves and not just putting them there but selling them. Lots of them. So, why was I so afraid to admit that? The answer is simple – Self preservation.

I fell back on a few excuses.

“It’s just not meant to be, and it’s time to be okay with that.”

“Your kids needed your time so much more than your book needed you. You bought that book a pretty pink binder. You’ve done all you can for her.”

Under all of those excuses was the honest stuff floating in my head.

“Remember the rejection and how that felt? Why would you put yourself through that again when the acceptance in the rest of your life feels so much better.”

At age forty, this is my third official manuscript. The first turned into a completed piece of work about a mission trip our family took. It was going to be the book that launched a long career of writing and helped fund orphanages around the world. It sold 24 copies.

My second manuscript was a piece of fiction and it turned into the first novel I submitted to agents. I can’t even count the number of agents who rejected it. I made the decision to self-published (probably ill-advised), and put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this one. I even got a few bloggers to review it. There were many good reviews and kind words but I mostly remember the bad. It went on to sell 54 copies.

I’ve never talked about the rejection. When people ask about my writing, I smile and downplay the importance after thanking them for their interest. Maybe that’s what forty is offering me. A confidence to say that I had a dream, got kicked in the teeth a few times, quit, and then didn’t like the way quitting made me feel.

I really wanted this blog to be about how forty feels like the new thirty, but it doesn’t. It feels like forty. I think it’s supposed to feel like forty. If I still felt thirty, I wouldn’t be forced to make a clear decision about the type of person I want to be. Am I the person who gives up and refuses to accept no or the person who pulls herself from the race because that’s easier than others telling me I no longer get to compete? I already know the answer.

I want to take more risks, celebrate my successes, and be honest about my failures. I want to stop hiding behind excuses and trips to Target for pretty binders that make me feel like I’m making progress towards my dream without really doing anything at all. I want to finish what I started for as long as that takes, so when my kid asks me why I keep trying, I can respond, “Because you don’t quit on dreams” and be the example instead of the hypocrite.