3 Year Old in Space

I’ve always tried to be pretty open minded, and the one thing I want to pass on to my daughter is the ability to dream and carry out those dreams. In my anxiety ridden life I get the first part right but the follow through on the second part seems to disappear when things get challenging. It’s not that I’m a quitter on all fronts, just big ones where rejection looms.

For example: my family was transferred to Salt Lake for a nine month training program for my husband and his work, I agreed to it, even though we had just completed building a wonderful home and were finally getting to see some of our work pay off. But I agreed so that I could become a stay at home mom, which in all reality the trade was a good one. While in Salt Lake though I found that not working was difficult so I decided to write a manuscript.

The plan was simple: 1) write manuscript 2) edit manuscript 3) send to publisher 4) get published 5) make tons of money 6) become filthy rich and famous 7) write series 8) go see my book at the movies.

It made sense to me. This is how the industry worked…right? Ha ha…no.

So I do write the manuscript, I do have it edited, I do send it to publishers, and I DO GET REJECTED. Wait what? That wasn’t part of the plan. The hardest part of the experience was the hope involved, my work kept getting “held” places, I would get an email saying “We are really interested in your work, it is now being read by so and so- who has all the power!” Ok so I may have added that last part. But really they were hopeful emails; I was on cloud nine, “send to publisher, check! Get published, almost check!!” But then finally 8 months later I would get the lovely form letter, “It’s just not right for us.” Wait REALLY 'cause you’ve held on to it for 8 months, I mean if you kept it for 8 months and it passed all the people who “didn’t have the power but thought it was good enough for the person with the power to see…” well WTF? I mean can I change something? Let me change something, please!!! But no, that is not how the publishing industry works, not even close.

So after three of those rejections I gave up for a bit, I’m not saying I quit, because I think maybe one day my confidence will be back and I might just send out another query letter and maybe I won’t break down and cry at my mail box when I get another rejection. Maybe.

My daughter is different though. She is a dreamer, she is three, and I think that helps. I wish I had an ounce of what she has, energy, love, compassion, hope...she amazes me. One morning as I am angrily making coffee, because the morning has once again come too quickly she runs into the kitchen and asks,

“Mom, when can I go to space?” Just matter of factly, like everyone gets to go, when is it my turn?

I had two options that morning; I could have said:

“Oh honey, normal people don’t go to space, only astronauts go into space.”

Instead somehow cranky, sooooo not a morning person, Shauna replied,

“When you’re a grown up.” And I am so proud of myself for that. After all I am only her mother, who am I to tell her that she isn’t going to space! As long as she has that dream then there is potential. I would much rather her youth be filled with hope and planning than with transposed “reality.” By which I mean, in my reality I will never go to space, I know that isn’t gonna happen, I also know that odds are she won’t either, but she doesn’t need to know that, she doesn’t need to know that NOT going to space is even an option, she’s three and to her anything is possible.

What happened to the three year old in me? Where did this fear come from? When did I start choosing to quit on my dreams and why? And is there any way to get that back?

I think there is and God has blessed me with the perfect example, a wonderful three year old who KNOWS she will go to space when she is a grown up, not just because she believes it, but because her mommy said so.