Returning to a dream

How easily we forget.

I realized this as I stayed up until 1:00 AM putting my portfolio together.

As a contributing writer for Good Housekeeping, I had started off by writing for their Mommy Makeover section. Just one-page articles about moms who wanted to upgrade and improve their look, but didn't quite know where to start.

I remember that every shoot would have four to five moms that I would need to interview, which meant that my articles would come out in a span of four to five months. But I had forgotten just how many moms I had met in the course of these interviews. I realized last night that I had done nine Mommy Makeover articles from 2009 to 2010.

As I looked through the old magazines (and grew increasingly frustrated to find that my 2010 magazines were missing, and those had my biggest articles), I realized that there were some articles I had even forgotten about, like this one:

How could I have forgotten that day when I sat down with THE Ida Henares and her husband Ronnie, where they candidly shared their love story with me? It was a privilege to hear it, and an honor to write about it with the purpose of inspiring other couples. Again, how could I have forgotten?

As I searched for the missing magazines last night, I was only fixated on finding two copies in particular. Thank goodness I suddenly realized that I had one more missing article, and it was the only one where I had to produce the shoot as well:

Lucky for me that this came out in 2012, and Good Housekeeping already has digital editions. I purchased a copy on my iPad and proceeded to take screencaps of my article, to be stitched together and placed in PDF format after. Ah, the wonders of technology! How I wish those 2010 issues had digital versions too!

In all that has happened to this point, I had forgotten this part of my life. Maybe it was because I had always seen it as raket, as something that I was doing on the side of a "real" job, a dream that I indulged in before coming back to the demands of the real world.

Now I realize that the dream can become your reality, if you want it, are willing to take risks for it, and believe that you can do it. When self-doubt begins to whisper in my ear that I can't do this, now all I have to do is look back at all these articles and tell myself:

"I can do it, because I ALREADY DID."