I have a plan for my future. Whether it's feasible, whether it will ever happens, I don't really care. What matters is I have a plan: I want to own a sandwich shop.
Specifically, I want to own a sandwich shop with an apartment above that I can live in, in some really unique and interesting part of the country. I want to spend my days running the sandwich shop, and my nights writing whatever comes to my imagination. I want to make really interesting sandwiches, like crispy haddock on garlic bread with coleslaw and weird stuff like that. I want to have free Wi-Fi in my sandwich shop, play awesome music all the time, and spend my breaks talking to customers getting to know them.
My sandwich shop would become a hub for artists and other interesting people. I want to spend nights writing stories about the people I meet, writing poetry about the world around me, and working on some amazing screenplay I'll eventually sell to Hollywood donating the money to charity. I want to give the bread I don't sell each day to the local shelter, and I want to eventually open a little bookshop right next door. Maybe the bookshop won't make money, but I'll keep it open anyway, just for the love it. The important part is that I control my future.
See, I'm a practical guy. I know I probably won't be able to make it in the real world just being a writer, but I'm a hopeless idealist, and I'll never be able to give up my dream, my passion, for that reason. I can't live my mother's life, working in an office all day, being chummy with rich people so they'll make donations, and answering e-mails in a cubicle that may as well be a cell. I love and respect her for what she does, but being a cubicle drone would kill me just as sure as any bullet. It would crush my spirit, and what am I without that?
Likewise, I can't be like my dad, writing, other people's books to make ends meet. I love and respect him for what he does, too, but that kind of writing might as well not be writing at all, in my opinion.
The reason I write is to share my soul; I can't do that with other people's words. I need to have control over my destiny and write for myself, speaking for no one else. My life and destiny are all I have. Why would I give them over to someone else's plan?
So I want to run a sandwich shop. It may be an impossible dream, something totally unfeasible in the real world; I'll be the first to admit I know absolutely nothing about the real world or how it works. I've lived my life in what is arguably the most sheltered place on earth, but all I want to do now is escape.
I may end up giving up my dream, compromising myself to put bread on the table, but I hope and pray I won't. Right now I have my whole life ahead of me, and I know what I want to do. I have a dream. I want to own a sandwich shop.
Specifically, I want to own a sandwich shop with an apartment above that I can live in, in some really unique and interesting part of the country. I want to spend my days running the sandwich shop, and my nights writing whatever comes to my imagination. I want to make really interesting sandwiches, like crispy haddock on garlic bread with coleslaw and weird stuff like that. I want to have free Wi-Fi in my sandwich shop, play awesome music all the time, and spend my breaks talking to customers getting to know them.
My sandwich shop would become a hub for artists and other interesting people. I want to spend nights writing stories about the people I meet, writing poetry about the world around me, and working on some amazing screenplay I'll eventually sell to Hollywood donating the money to charity. I want to give the bread I don't sell each day to the local shelter, and I want to eventually open a little bookshop right next door. Maybe the bookshop won't make money, but I'll keep it open anyway, just for the love it. The important part is that I control my future.
See, I'm a practical guy. I know I probably won't be able to make it in the real world just being a writer, but I'm a hopeless idealist, and I'll never be able to give up my dream, my passion, for that reason. I can't live my mother's life, working in an office all day, being chummy with rich people so they'll make donations, and answering e-mails in a cubicle that may as well be a cell. I love and respect her for what she does, but being a cubicle drone would kill me just as sure as any bullet. It would crush my spirit, and what am I without that?
Likewise, I can't be like my dad, writing, other people's books to make ends meet. I love and respect him for what he does, too, but that kind of writing might as well not be writing at all, in my opinion.
The reason I write is to share my soul; I can't do that with other people's words. I need to have control over my destiny and write for myself, speaking for no one else. My life and destiny are all I have. Why would I give them over to someone else's plan?
So I want to run a sandwich shop. It may be an impossible dream, something totally unfeasible in the real world; I'll be the first to admit I know absolutely nothing about the real world or how it works. I've lived my life in what is arguably the most sheltered place on earth, but all I want to do now is escape.
I may end up giving up my dream, compromising myself to put bread on the table, but I hope and pray I won't. Right now I have my whole life ahead of me, and I know what I want to do. I have a dream. I want to own a sandwich shop.
This piece has been published in Teen Ink’s monthly print magazine.
samasparagus
Hazel-daisy
xLauren
.Boo.
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