This post is a part of the Sep­tem­ber syn­chroblog spon­sored by SheLoves mag­a­zine. The theme this month is Awake. Click HERE to see the list of blog­gers who have con­tributed. Con­sider con­tribut­ing to next months’s synchrobog!

“I heard you have a book com­ing out,” I said to a famil­iar face I bumped into at a recent func­tion. “Con­grat­u­la­tions!  Did it take you long to get that going?”

I know a few authors in my sphere of influ­ence, and being a writer myself (who’s attempted to break into main­stream pub­lish­ing) I am well aware of the time-​​consuming obsta­cles the typ­i­cal author has to endure to get published.

“No, not long. I sub­mit­ted a pro­posal and they offered me a three-​​book deal and gave me a big check.”

He said this matter-​​of-​​factly with­out a trace of bravada. I was stunned. No…I was star­tled. It can’t be true.

“Are you seri­ous?” I exclaimed, my voice ris­ing with dis­be­lief mixed with green tones of jeal­ousy. “You’re mess­ing with me, right? No way did that hap­pen. A three book deal?”

He nod­ded his head. “Yeah, I know. It’s a dream, but it did happen.”

As it sunk in that he wasn’t jest­ing I became agi­tated. “You’re not kid­ding. Wow. Don’t you know that writ­ers like me hate writ­ers like you.”

I heard the words fall out of my mouth, unfil­tered by social pro­pri­ety as raw emo­tion bled out into what was meant to be small talk.

“Writ­ers like me gruel and bleed and work hard and try to break in and then some­one like you comes along and it just hap­pens,” I said.

“I know,” he affirmed, “it’s crazy.”

My dis­may at his suc­cess in con­trast to my lack of it  was utterly betrayed.

He reached into his bag.

“Here. Have this.”

He handed me a sexy look­ing book… his book.

“A gift.”

I stam­mered thank you as I now was try­ing so hard to regain my com­po­sure. A heat of embar­rass­ment flushed through me as I real­ized how over reac­tive I was being.  Then, I lost it again.

“He wrote your for­ward?  I asked him to write one for my book, but he said no.”

My author friend had man­aged to get one of the biggest names in Chris­t­ian pub­lish­ing to write the for­ward to his book.

“You will sell many thou­sands of books just because of this for­ward, you know,” I said as another heat wave of ten­sion mixed with new embar­rass­ment washed over me. I had socially effed this up on so many levels.

“I know. I’m lucky they didn’t put the font for his name larger than mine,” he joked.

We said our good-​​byes, I thanked him for the book and promised to review it for my blog. “Let me know when you do,” he said and of course I will. He’s a nice guy. Hum­ble and grate­ful for the wide open door that he has been given access to.

By the time I got to my mini­van hot tears began to spill out. “Why don’t I get a break like that!” I ranted to God as I drove away. “I write my ass off. I blog and net­work and do every­thing I can to make it as a writer, yet here I am stuck work­ing in a ser­vice job and for what!?”

It was appar­ent that the hap­pen­stance of run­ning into this new (and younger I might add) author had trig­gered hid­den dis­ap­point­ment.  I thought I was at peace with my story, my story of being a writer who’s a Chris­t­ian but not Chris­t­ian enough to be a Chris­t­ian writer, not wired enough to be a mar­ketable writer, Not Good Enough to get my pro­posal through to exec­u­tive pub­lish­ing boards of big house pub­lish­ers. I thought I had set­tled that score inside of myself. I had prayed through it many times and decided that wis­dom called for me to focus on the doors that did open, the way of the path right in front of me rather than be defeated by the doors that wouldn’t budge or the path that didn’t lead to my ide­al­ized ver­sion of writerly success.

Once again I found myself woken up in the mid­dle of my own story. The plot was not going as expected. I thought I’d be a full-​​time writer by now, no longer hav­ing to work at my high-​​stress hos­pi­tal job to help with fam­ily bills. Talk­ing with this new author rat­tled me from my slum­ber of acqui­es­cence. I had mis­taken peace with sup­pres­sion. I did not yet own the story that I found myself in. I had merely taken a nap from the anx­i­ety of it all.

“What is my prob­lem?” I said to a group of wise, sage women who I meet with. “I’ve paid my dues. I thought I’d be fur­ther along by now.”

‘It’s that sense of enti­tle­ment,” replied my friend Deb­o­rah. “Women in India have paid their dues, too, but look at their lives. There is no big break.”

The light went off.

“Enti­tle­ment. Yes, you’re right.  I live such a life of priv­i­lege to even think I have a prob­lem like not get­ting a big writ­ing break.”  Our chat­ter paused as that thought cen­tered itself in the room like a bou­quet of fresh wild­flow­ers. Deb­o­rah often has a word of wis­dom and has spo­ken into my life more than once.

I gnawed on all of this for days and days. It’s been my reflec­tion for 2012 : Own my own story. Wake up and take respon­si­bil­ity for the life I find myself in. It means hav­ing to stop com­par­ing myself to oth­ers or con­trast­ing one author’s writ­ing path with the one that I am on. It means pay­ing atten­tion to God’s pres­ence amongst the closed doors and dead ends.  Unre­al­ized dreams are part of the story, for per­haps they weren’t meant to be my dream in the first place…and we only dream when we are asleep. But here I was wak­ing up again to the real­ity of the woman I am and the life I have at this stage of being. This is where grat­i­tude comes in. Grat­i­tude is the anti­dote for dis­ap­point­ment. Of this I am convinced.

That’s how I broke out of the funk. I reached inside for the golden places where grate­ful­ness resides. As I called forth thanks for the life I have right now, for the writ­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that are mine right now, for the steady pay­check of the hos­pi­tal job right now, my per­cep­tion became recal­i­brated. Dis­ap­point­ment can­not colden a heart under the warm light of a thank­ful soul. 

Being awake and fully present to the right here and right now is how I can own my story and own it with grat­i­tude.   It is what will help me cel­e­brate the sto­ries that oth­ers find them­selves in (like my author friend) rather than col­lapse from a dis­heart­ened spirit. God is in my story, in every nook and cranny, in every lack of pro­vi­sion and denied aspi­ra­tion. God is ever present in the story I find myself in.

That is some­thing I thank­fully will stay awake for.

(to read more about my writ­ing mishaps check out this post, Why I’m Not a Chris­t­ian Writer)

What about you? What part of your story do you need to wake up?