I am one of hundreds of thousands of people who strive to make a difference in the world, and I want to do it with my talent as an authoress. Last summer–about this time, in fact–I met a woman who told me that the three greatest things you can give to others are Time, Talent and Treasure. While I’ve been grossly lacking on Treasure, and Time has been taken up in part by work and school, what I’m left with offering is Talent. I wish I had the ability to build houses–to give immediate relief to people in need, but I don’t. I don’t have that. What I can build are worlds and lives, both of which can give temporary escape or long-lasting change to an existing life if people are willing to go deep and explore. It’s eye-opening for me to see how friends and acquaintances praise the literary works of other authors, forgetting that there is one very close to them–one they can talk to for further insight about these fantastical stories, or…Life. It’s my contribution to Being Real. There is something about Being Real, however, that seems to make me intangible. Those with the Celebrity Status–whom most people will never be in the same room with–are so far removed from the rest of us, it’s a wonder how people get so star-struck, rather than making the most of what’s closest to them. Nothing much I can do about that, but hope to one day be removed from tangibility…And then where will we all be?

There has been a lot of talk around me lately of icebergs in relation to people’s lives–that we only see the tip of them and that there’s more underneath that we don’t know about. People who seem happy may not be. People who seem successful may not be. I don’t know how much truth there is to all of that. What I know is that I see people posting pictures of going to New Zealand and the Virgin Islands and England, and the harder I work, the closer I get to a grassy gown with a granite crown. It’s truly amazing. Really. Like, I am in utter disbelief that my upswings in life are so much shorter than the downs. There is no logic here. No balance. My iceberg definitely runs wide and deep beneath the surface.

Maybe the reason for this is all my fault. I set the bars of expectation for myself really high–maybe too high. I’m not sure I can stomach the idea of lowering my expectations, mostly because I know what I’m capable of.  I think it might be better if the answer to that were always a mystery. Then again–it really is, because I still keep reaching higher.