The Reality of a Dream

“If you’re not making time for it, it really cannot be important,” Clary says, my obnoxious co-worker. She takes a sip of coffee in our company break room and nods like she has offered sage advice, her eyes wide waiting for me to thank her for her wisdom.

My hands clutch the scolding cup of coffee I’d yet to sip, my teeth grit, to hold back the tirade that wants to spew out of me.

That no, in fact we do not all have the same 24 hours in our day.

I could have 240 hours a day and it would not be enough to encompass the weight of my existence.

That an art contest cannot be a priority. I regret even bringing it up to her. She had been talking about the art gallery owned by the Lovell family that my mother and I had frequently visited. I was just making conversation as Alice Lovell was on the judging panel; it had been playing on my mind as the entry deadline was only 2 days away.

I’d been dreaming of the painting I would do, the amount of time and skill it required exceeded what reality allowed.

My husband died 5 years ago, and I now cared for our 13-year-old twins who just started at a new school, the last few years had been hard on them. My mother had died suddenly 2 months after my husband from a surprise heart attack. Due to financial pressure, I sold the house which barely covered the mortgage owed. I moved in with my dad who wasn’t the same after his wife died, he had escalating health issues and I was also caring for him.

That I worked 2 jobs and taught art classes in my home every afternoon to not even make ends meet.

That this was the only coffee I drank as I didn’t have to pay for it. The coffee inevitably that Clary would scrunch up her nose at and go to the café and tell me I really should do the same and treat myself.

We are not playing the same game of life.

Some are given a brand-new shiny game in the box and others have to collect the pieces one by one to even attempt to play the game and even then you are given a different set of instructions to everyone else.

It was like playing monopoly when you only had the pieces for snakes and ladders.

Instead of explaining any of that I force the grit of my teeth into a smile and nod like she is right. That it cannot be important to me and should just not even think about it.

“Also, you should get some more sleep, the circles under your eyes are so dark,” she said, taking another sip, scrunching up her face and pouring the coffee down the sink.

“Sure,” I said, turning and walking back to my desk.

Slumping down in my chair the burning fire in my chest turned to smoke.

I wasn’t blaming Clary for living a different life to me. I wasn’t even mad that my life was my life. Truly.

A break every now and then would be nice, to not wake up more exhausted then when I slept but dwelling on that too much lead to resentment and that wouldn’t change a damn thing.

Usually it didn’t get to me.

I had the chance to go to art school a lifetime ago but I had met my husband and we had both wanted a family. And I had wanted to be home with the twins as much as possible when they were little and I would paint when I could at home.

Life was perfect.

But you could never predict the way life would go.

That the business my husband had started, that he poured blood sweat and tears into, that was on the precipice of making us more than enough money and had taken near a decade of dreaming and building would never come to be. That he would die when our debt was at its height when a drunk driver smashed into his car.

The debt didn’t die with him though.

Oh no that became mine.

In 5 years I’d barely made a dint.

Not for a second did I regret my choice. It didn’t mean I didn’t want things. I believed with my whole being that one day I would have the debt paid down, that I would only be working one job and that I would have time to paint again.

Maybe then I could enter a competition.

I took a sip of coffee now the steam had dissipated, my brain wandered to the image it wanted to paint for the contest. Ever since I saw the ad a month ago it hadn’t left my mind.

My mother would tell me to do it. But I was no longer a child who just could, like my mother did before me life came first and if there was time then paint.

There hadn’t been a scrap of time in the last 5 years.

There were pictures of my family on my desk, the one of my mother was of her when she was younger in front of an easel covered in paint smiling at the camera. My chest caved knowing her dream of painting died with her and I couldn’t even try for both of us.

I couldn’t remember the last day that wasn’t hard.

My phone buzzed. Snapping me out of the train of thought I was meandering into.

The number was for the twin’s school. My heart sank; this was the second call this week.

I knocked on my boss’s door with my phone, laptop and bag clutched in hand.

“I know, I’m out of any type of leave and won’t be paid, I’ll make it up to you,” I said. She knew what it meant, because it always meant the same thing, my dad’s nurse had called and needed me, or the twins had another incident at school and needed me.

Someone somewhere always needed something.

If I didn’t work as hard as I did, did so much outside of my job scope and forewent promotions because of my need to leave for the twins she would have fired me a long time ago.

She sighed through her nose. “Finish up your work at home.”

Even though she was understanding I could tell it wore on her, my life seemed to be a virus infecting all who came into contact. I did my best to keep it under control.

*********************************************************************

Aurora had got in a fight again on her brothers’ behalf. She was the fiery one full of life, played multiple sports, the only reason they didn’t; suspend her most of the time was the teams needed her. My son was the quiet one, a softer soul who kept to himself.

Worry for them outweighed any anger.

They were good kids.

It was hard to be mad at them when they launched into the speech of how they knew they did wrong and set about doing work at home to make up for it.

Well Aurora spoke Kieran just nodded, put his headphones on and stared out the window the whole trip home while Aurora prattled on about some friend drama at school.

We pulled into the driveway at home, Aurora promised to take care of dinner and Kieran would spend time with my dad and I just realised I had forgot my dad’s medication. I had to go to 3 pharmacies to find it and only just made it back in time for the art classes.

At the end the inevitable whispered conversations between the parents happened.

“Such a shame she is only a teacher. Waste of talent.”

As if my life was a shameful waste.

As if I only really, really wanted it that it would happen.

That no one really believed I could make anything of this, that my moment had passed.

They were right.

Usually it would wash over me, today they found their mark.

Art classes had run over, eating into my already packed schedule. It took me hours to help the twins with homework, spend time with my dad and start the abundance of work from my other jobs. It was near midnight by the time I got back to the art room to clean and reset it all for tomorrow.

I slumped in a chair staring at the blank canvas.

I could picture the image in my head… I wished the image would stop haunting me.

For the first time in years, I admitted that eternal burning desire to create, to paint.

Fatigue hit me like a truck.

But a dream could only be a dream.

I went to get up to go to bed as Kieran appeared in the doorway, headphones around his neck.

“I’m sorry about today,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I replied.

Aurora had this rawness of always being present, she allowed herself to feel all life threw at her, she cried, screamed, celebrated. Her brother was her opposite he collected it all percolating away, brewing a soft simmering rage directed at himself rather than the world.

I knew how to help Aurora but all these years I didn’t know how to reach him when I saw him drowning within himself.

He rubbed his eyes, saw the blank canvas before me.

“What are you doing?” He asked. “I haven’t seen you paint in years.”

“There’s a competition, I think I may have left it too late though,” I said, I had learnt long ago to not lie he could sense it and would stew.

“Has it ended?” He asked.

I shook my head, not wanting to explain it to him.

“What happened today?” I asked.

Words always eluded him. I could see them swirling away in his head.

“Maybe try painting how you feel?” I suggested, the therapist had tried getting him to talk to write but maybe he needed something else to help.

His eyes lingered on the blank canvas. I knew him though it was too exposed.

I went to the cupboard and got out one of the blank workbooks and some pencils and held it out to him.

His hand hesitated to grab the book, his eyes flicking to my blank canvas.

In that moment I knew if I walked away, he wouldn’t give it a shot, it wasn’t enough to tell him. I had to show him.

“We will both do it together,” I said, pointing to the canvas.

I knew I would pay for it; no time was free only borrowed.

“And you will enter it?” He asked, taking the book out of my hands as if we were making a tentative deal.

I nodded.

“We can drop it off together,” I said.

It seemed to satisfy him. He dropped into the armchair and put his headphones on and opened his book.

I hadn’t seen him engage with art for years either and a pang of guilt ate at me. Had he been waiting all this time?

He’d stopped dreaming along the way and I hadn’t noticed because I had done the same thing.

Staring at him in that moment I could see my younger self through my mother’s eyes. I now knew all the times she painted with she had a mile long list and a body screaming for rest, but she saw me watching.

My hand hovered over the brush, I hesitated. The smart thing would be to get a few hours’ sleep to prepare for the onslaught again tomorrow. Kieran paused, he looked at me. Sighing I picked up my brush and started, it was nothing like the image I had spent months envisioning, there was no time for it.

I let the new image pour out of me unfiltered.

I made the most of the few hours I had, Kieran drifted off to sleep, and I had put a blanket over him and kept painting. Everything from the last 5 years spilled out of me.

I stopped when the sun rose.

At the end there was a raw wound in the centre of my chest as if that was the place the painting had been ripped from.

*********************************************************************

Winter dragged by, I had 10 more school visits and one suspension to deal with. New wardrobes to buy for the twins, a broken heater, disputes with the neighbours after the knocked down the fence and demand I pay half. Hospital visits with my dad, where we were told he had less than a year left as his health was failing fast.

I knew that. The morning I had finished my painting he smiled at it and said, “Violet our daughter will love this.” Violet was my mother.

The only bright spark was Aurora had made the soccer team, and Kieran was working on his art. Some nights I could spare 30 mins to paint with him while he drew.

I told myself I wasn’t looking at the calendar for the announcement.

Yet I found myself counting down every month, week and day.

Now sitting at my work desk there was less than 5 minutes until the announcement.

It didn’t matter I told myself but somehow along the way it had.

My boss called by my desk to move forward the deadline on what I was working on, I had until the end of day. We also had a meeting in 10 minutes

When she walked away the clock on my computer showed 10am.

Fingers shaking I hit the reset button.

And…

I hadn’t won.

I wasn’t even a finalist.

My heartbeat went light and fluttery.

The painting that won was near identical to what I wanted to do. Technically perfect and maybe it was my bitterness speaking but lacking soul.

I knew mine was rushed, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted, I knew what should really matter is that I helped my son and that I proved to myself I could do it.

That didn’t stop the crushing weight in my chest, the brutal come down to reality that the scrap of a dream had helped me endure. Now I was empty.

Hopeless.

Why I hadn’t bothered dreaming in so long, it only hurt when it failed. Made reality all the more brutal.

That for 5 years now I had been treading water unable to make any headway in life.

That even when I finally had the time to paint maybe any talent I had once upon a time was gone.

Kieran messaged and my heart entirely fractured.

Yours was better.

He’d been watching and waiting too.

I wanted to vomit. I widened my eyes to stop the heat from forming tears.

Clary walked by my desk as I was looking at the winner and finalists.

“Wow they are amazing, good thing you didn’t enter they are proper artists,” she said and sauntered away.

She would have been better off slapping me.

Instead I got a passive aggressive punch to the gut that of course someone like me who had a life like mine couldn’t possibly achieve something as beautiful as that.

The worst part was she was right.

Everyone was.

My breath was stuck in my throat. Embarrassingly hot tears slid down my face.

A text alert on my phone again.

It was a picture from Kieran.

Of a drawing he had done.

Of me.

The pain misted, turning into a tender ache.

Another text.

Would you mind if I entered this in my schools contest?

The tears turned from one pain to another. Proud didn’t even reach what was swelling in my chest.

I let out a sigh and dried my tears.

One day. I would keep working away day by day and one day I would have time again to breathe. To paint in moments that weren’t borrowed.

My phone buzzed, not a text this time but a phone call. Please, not the school again or worse the hospital. I couldn’t bear anything else; it might finally shatter me today.

It was an unknown number.

“Hello,” I said, body bracing.

“Is this Faith Evers?” The light feminine voice asked

“Yes.” This couldn’t be good.

“This is Alice Lovell.”

“Alice Lovell?” I asked, finally able to speak two words.

Why would she be calling?

“Yes, I was on the judging panel for the contest you entered.”

My heart sank. “I know I didn’t win.”

“That’s not why I’m calling, I want to buy it.”

“What?”

“Your painting, I want to buy it.”

“You want to buy it?” I sounded like an idiot parroting everything back.

“Yes. Please have a think about it, I haven’t been able to stop staring at it,” her voice choked at the end. The way she sounded was the way I felt when I saw Kieran’s drawing of me. There were voices in the background calling her. “I have to go but we will do coffee soon, I need to hear all about it and see more of your work.”

“Of course,” was all I could manage.

She hung up, my hand clutched my phone.

No words, thoughts or feelings would come forward after that short storm of emotion. I rubbed my chest; a melancholic bruise had formed there.

I looked at the photo of my mother, standing in front of an easel, staring at the camera smiling. As if she had been staring into the future all that time ago to this moment say see Faith you should never stop dreaming.

Clary called out my name, the meeting was about to start.

After an avalanche of setbacks and losses this was a win, a step forward.

Emotionally wrung out I launched back into my work, my reality. One call didn’t change that and yet I walked to the meeting feeling lighter than I had in years.