Life.

I want mine back. Not this new life, but my old one. I want to go back to just before my injury. When a huge publishing company was in talks with me and a novel I was working on. They wanted it. I wanted to give it to them. They were asking for more chapters and the last one before making an offer. I was working on it when I had the injury.

If I were able to go back in time, remove the injury from the past, and keep going, within a week, I'd have had the rest of the chapters sent to the company and had been waiting anxiously for the offer from them. My dreams literally in the palm of my hand. I could taste them.

Instead, I had to tell them what happened. I had to let the know that I had no idea when I'd be able to get anything to them. I had no idea if I'd ever be able to finish anything or even write again. It was college all over again.

In college, I loved writing, it was my minor, not my major. I soaked up every writing class I could. I drank it in like some people do with air. It kept me going. Kept me alive. I wrote a paper for a class. I had become friends with the professor. She loved the piece I wrote and showed it to her husband, who was the Dean of the English Department. They both went and sent it in. She called me into her office about a month later. I had an offer. My first real offer, from a real BIG publisher. Oh. My. God.

I remember the feelings I had. I remember the joy mixed with anxiety. I remember thinking of throwing my major out of the window and living the life as a writer. Working hard, making characters and places come to life. Wow. What a life.

I read over the papers, with my Professor smiling at me, watching me earnestly as I read through each line.

At the end, where it had a place for my signature, I come to realize something. As bad as I wanted this. As much as I wanted this, I couldn't. I couldn't do this now.

You see, they wanted this 1,500 word paper turned into a 65-80,000 word novel - in 6 weeks. Six. Weeks.

I worked full time. I was a college student full time. Not to mention that I was a single mom full time. How. The. Hell.

There was no way. I could not sign my name on that line and promise this wonderful dream company something so important, in such a short time. I had a child dependent on me. I had a job that required my time. I had an extremely full course load. I also attended both summer sessions and took the maximum course load.

There was no room. No way I could commit. I feared trying and not making it, and letting down this massive publisher, my professor and the dean.

I told my professor my thoughts and reality. She was heartbroken. As was I. We tried to work out something to make it all work, including with the possibility of me quitting my job, but I needed money. I needed to not just support myself, but my child. There was no way. No way.

I cried and cried in her office. She cried with me.

Then she told me, "It's just not your time yet. Your time is coming, but this is just not meant to be that time." Was she right?

Years later, still writing for myself, I decided to give it a shot on my own. I was done having children. I was not working, no more college. My children were all in school. I had hours during the day. So I wrote.

I submitted.

To only one company.

To hear back from them that they were highly interested and wanted more stunned me. I spoke with them for a few days and we agreed on what they'd like, what I'd like and that I'd send in the few chapters to them within three weeks.

My dream was in my hands - for a second time.

Wow. What are the odds? Not good.

Then I fell. My brain changed. I changed. My writing ability crashed. I cannot retain where I left off. Story lines get lost in the dark halls of my  brain. I cannot piece together a novel in my head anymore. I've found doing it on paper is useless as well. I come back to it later, only to have no idea where I was headed.

I've realized I want that goal. I want that bad.

I want a third chance.

Will I ever get it? It's unlikely. But I can only hope that one day I will. Maybe I should force myself to try to construct novels again? Maybe short stories? I'm not sure. Either way, I know I want to write. I want to feel that power again. The power of the written word. I miss that power dearly.

I want to be who I was.