The Other Side of Imagination

WHERE ARE YOU WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES?

I’ve been here before.

That’s the opening line of my first novel. It’s kind of eerie reflecting on how perfectly that line describes so much of my life. Even in the novel, the line is an allusion to the main character’s tribulations and the feeling that no matter what he does, he ends up in the same place.

When I think of that line, it reminds me that I “saw” everything. Whatever success I’m enjoying now, I’ve seen it in my mind a million times before it ever came to fruition. As clear as an image on my computer screen, I knew the life I wanted was on the other side of my imagination.

But my imagination came first. Then those images turned to goals, those goals turned to plans, those plans turned to preparation. Now so much of what I imagined is a reality. It’s my life.

I’m very intentional about daydreaming. I find alone time with no devices, no TV, no sounds. Just me and my own mind. I let thoughts float in, around, and out of my head with no filter. No judgement. Whatever those thoughts are, they are.

Some of those thoughts I grasp on to. They become characters in one of my novels, an idea for one of my newsletters, a conversation I want to have with my daughter. They become new visions I have for myself, places I want to visit, spaces I want to exist in.

For those thoughts I hold on to, I begin preparing myself. I think about the person I need to be if I want those goals to become my life. I begin implementing those changes. Even though the end goal might be far away, I know in order for me to get there, I need to become that person if I want that thing.

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I heard something recently that forever changed the way I think. Sitting in the crowd at a conference, the speaker asked us, “What does a seed need to become a tree?”

Water

Germination

Soil

Those were some of the answers members of the crowd blurted out loud. But the speaker gave us the true answer.

“If a seed wants to become a tree, it must accept the reality that it will never be a seed again.”

As writers, how willing are we to burst from our seeds to blossom into the trees we know we can be? How far are we allowing our imaginations to take us and how intentional are we being with our planning?

I’m getting close to the other side of my imagination. It’s beautiful here. It’s where I know I need to be.