Following Dreams

When I was in my late teens, I bought a second hand silky oak bookcase. I’d actually gone out to buy an old timber trunk, but how could I resist the bookcase? Obviously I couldn’t and I brought it home and began to shift some of my books from their makeshift shelves and into the bookcase. I kept authors’ books together and when I was finished I stood back and admired the shelves. At that moment it struck me that the books of one of the authors had nearly completely filled the top shelf. I wanted to be able to do that. I wanted to fill the top shelf of the bookcase with my own books.

Over the years I mentioned this to a few people. Some nodded or shrugged, others laughed. Did I realise how many books it would take to fill the shelf? Well of course I did. I’m perfectly capable of counting and I could clearly see the books already in the shelf. Did I know how much work that would take? Yep. And I’ve never been afraid of hard work. Dreams are for children. Seriously? I think that person more than most needed a few dreams of their own to follow. And the winning comment- you won’t live long enough to write enough books to fill that shelf. A polite way to tell me to drop dead? Apparently not. A threat? Why would I even suggest that? Hmm, not sure… So a challenge then? Not that either. Oh well, challenge accepted anyway.

Recently I was able to achieve that dream. Filling the top shelf with my books. It has taken me a lot of years to reach that point, but I’ve finally fulfilled yet another one of my dreams. But I’m not about to stop there. The bookcase has another three shelves. It won’t be long before I start on the second shelf and who knows, maybe one day I’ll fill them all. I certainly have more than enough ideas to be able to write that many books and more.