Note: I recently enrolled again in college and the following post is from a writing exercise.
In high school my ambition was to be an editor or writer for Dragon magazine, the monthly periodical by the publishers of Dungeons and Dragons game to promote their products. However, life happened and that dream was not realized.
Fast forward twenty four years and I was injured in construction and out of work for four years. After being able to just get out of bed I began to focus on child care and house work to stay busy. The children aged and started school and suddenly I experienced emptiness.
In the light of a computer screen I rediscovered my high school hobby on the internet, role playing games. Except now the hobby is made up of people world-wide chatting and blogging through the internet.
In particular I had been a fan of science fiction and had played such games as Car Wars and Star Frontiers. On the web I discovered a thriving community of devotees to the old Star Frontiers game. The heart of that community was a fan magazine, written and produced by fans of the game. It was not long before my creative urges, which had long laid dormant, found validation in the pages of that magazine.
Today, six years later, I've become a major producer of science fiction content both in the areas of fiction and role playing games. I edit and write for my own magazine, The Frontier Explorer, and I develop games for a modest (currently very modest) profit through an indie game company. In one sense I'm living my high school dream.
It is ironic that it only took an injury that put me in bed for two months straight to bring about the unrealized dream. The pain I suffered was at times intense and unrelenting but it actually gave birth to the forgotten dream. It makes me wonder what the pain would have been to get to the end of my life and realize that I had never lived any dreams?
I suppose this may be the point where I would say something preachy like, "live your dreams" but I don't think it’s required. If you're reading this I sure you get the moral of the story. Truly this post is for me, to remind me to keep the dream in front of me and to live it because living a dream is to know joy even in the midst of pain.