In third grade, my teacher made me stand in front of class and read out loud. I failed horribly. Not because I was nervous, but because I couldn’t read.

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For several grades, I faked reading by memorizing the look and meaning of words. I knew letters had sounds, but I struggled to put them together correctly. Instead, I relied on sight words and my memory to keep me afloat in school. And it worked for a while… but reading only became harder as I got older.

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Some things seem so challenging, they appear to be impossible.

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It felt like I would never learn how to read. Then one day my younger sister was sounding out a word I didn’t know and I realized… I wanted it. I wanted more than anything to understand how to read.

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At age ten, words and sounds finally came together for me and I didn’t hate reading. In fact, I adored it.

When you adore something there is no portion control. I was like a starving monster released, devouring multiple books a day. I was surviving on stories and reading them wasn’t enough. I wanted to write them, dissect them, make them become reality.

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When I finished high school, I was ready to embark on my career path and started taking courses at a community college to finish an associate degree in written arts. I wanted to work with books, whether I was writing, editing, or part of the publishing process.

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Of course, our dreams and goals can get sidetracked and after finishing my first degree, I took a detour into graphic design, then a full-time job working in student affairs. The next thing I knew, I was ten years into a career which was rewarding and spontaneous, but not my dream. I enjoyed it… but I didn’t adore it.

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I never stopped writing, reading, or desiring my dream, but when you have the weight of ten years’ experience doing something completely different, there is fear attached. Maybe I’m too late? How do I get back to what I adore–to what feeds my soul?

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Like reading, this new challenge seemed impossible for me.

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I had to want to read. I needed to give it my time and attention, work on and imagine myself at the end goal. To make seemingly impossible things become reality, I had to want it.

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So I left my career, self-published two children’s novels and went back to school to finish my B. A. in English: Professional and Creative Writing. I’m following that dream even though it can feel scary and sometimes impossible.

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I want it. Just as I wanted to understand reading and, in the end, I understood myself.