When Self-Delusion Goes Horribly Wrong

Ever since I’ve been a child, I’ve sort of half-lived in my own imagination. I make up my own dreams when I can sleep, going over sky-high situations that would never happen: what if I was Wonder Woman, what if I met Ethan Hawke, what if… Well, you get the point.

More often than not, the silly little dreams would involve boys, but as I’ve gotten older, married my RRHB, they’ve morphed into illusions of financial freedom. For the past few months, I’ve been fantasizing about my next royalty cheque, imagining it being a one-way ticket to quitting my job and moving to Paris, writing full-time like Henry Miller, buying bread, cheese and pain au chocolat. And because the last one was such a surprise, like winning the lottery, I sort of half-expected the same thing this time around.

Alas, it’s not to be. While still a wonderful and joyous thing to receive a cheque in the mail for work that I did over four years ago now, the reality is the cheque won’t fulfill all the silly little fantasies I’ve made up in my head over the past six months (Okay, granted, I did go overboard, like moving to Paris, taking a year-long road trip through the States, finishing our house completely, quitting my job and writing full-time).

And I know it’s kind of silly, because I made up all the stories in my head myself, and have only my over-active imagination to blame, but I’m trying hard not to be too disappointed. It’s funny, all of the things in my life that I’ve always wished for outright (damn you Barbie Dream House, damn you!) have never come true. Everything good and real in my life has come from hard work, and I don’t resent that one bit; it’s made me the person that I am. That’s where the danger of dreaming comes in, it’s an impossible irony of being a girl with too great an imagination; real life is always letting me down. However, I now have less than six months until the next royalty cheque. And we’ll see if I can keep my daydreams in check or if I get carried away and am already packing my bags to Europe. I’ll keep you posted.

In terms of financial freedom, I guess I’ll have to go back to the tried and tested method of actually saving my money instead of spending it, which means I’ll have to stop shopping. No more new shoes for Ragdoll. So, as of today, the strict financial budget that allowed me to splurge on those shoes in the first place comes back into play. I suppose it’s my own version of the Debt Diet.

And just to reiterate, once again, I’m incredibly blessed and delighted to be lucky enough to be receiving royalty cheques at all. I’m thankful for the work, I’m thankful for the opportunity, and I’m especially thankful for the cheque that came today—I’m merely pointing out a flaw in my own character, something I already know about myself that I need to take some steps to change. Sort of like my ongoing New Years Revolutions and obsession with To Do Lists, the ever-evolving commitment to becoming a better rounded person. If that makes any sense at all.