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Back during the Oscars, I saw an interview with Helen Mirren, part of which took place in the English seaside vacation town where she embarked on her acting career, working as a sidewalk barker of sorts.  At one point, when the interviewer asked her if she was surprised at how far she’d come since those days, she made a statement that got wedged in my brain to the point where I finally had to get up from the couch and write it down.  What she said was, “I had my dreams, but the reality’s been so much more interesting.”

It was that last word, “interesting,” that did it.  She didn’t say her current successful life was “fabulous” or “surprising” or “phenomenal” or any other word I might have thought she would use to describe it.  No, she said it was “interesting.” Interesting.  A word that can be so many things, both good and bad, depending on its use.  A word that made me start thinking about what word I would use to describe my own professional reality.

I knew I wanted to be a writer, a novelist, when I was a child, probably from the moment I discovered the books I loved to read were the product of someone else’s imagination. I used to lie awake in bed at night, rewriting books I’d just finished reading, then, eventually, creating stories and characters of my own in my head.  As I got older, I began to envision what my life would be like once I actually became a writer.  But those visions consisted largely of sitting in bars with other writers and wearing berets.  Or meeting my legions of fans at booksignings. Or speaking to groups of eager aspiring authors and injecting them with the fervent love of the language I had myself.

What my dreams of being a writer didn’t involve was, um, actually writing something. I never pictured myself huddled over my keyboard, terrified to leave my desk as a deadline gnawed at the back of my neck. I didn’t anticipate the urge to angrily hurl my computer into the Ohio River whenever the writing wasn’t going as planned. I didn’t even anticipate the writing not going as planned.  I never imagined the wide load of self-doubt and second-guessing that’s trucked in with every new novel I sit down to write.  And I had no idea how frustrating and exhausting the act of writing is.

But I didn’t see the utter joy that comes with finally finishing a book, either.  I didn’t anticipate the enormous amount of pride that came when I saw my book displayed in a dump at the front of a store for the first time.  I didn’t anticipate the lightening of mood that comes with hearing from a reader how my book made her laugh on a day when she’d had too few of those.  And I didn’t imagine the awe that comes still with the realization that I can create something people like literally from thin air (or, at least, from some arcane hidden corner of my brain).

It really is interesting, those seemingly contradictory aspects of a writer’s reality.  I honestly can’t think of a better word to describe what my life is now, compared to the dreams I had as a child.  Except maybe cool.  Probably, I’m thinkin’, Helen Mirren would agree.

So how about you?  Are you now where you thought you’d be when you were young enough to dream about your future?  What word would you choose to describe your life in its current incarnation?  And for those of you who are dreaming now, where do you want to be when you “grow up”?