What am I trying to build?

There are times I read a book and just wonder: what in the hell am I doing? I feel their truth in my teeth, while my own lies lay feeble on the page. Their metaphors and similes dance across paragraphs, while mine crash at the starting line like a dead clown. There are some I read and I think: I can do this. But if mediocrity is the bar, wouldn’t sipping a good whiskey be a better use of my time? According to my therapist, it’s not imposter syndrome, because no one would mistake me for belonging up in the rarified air of professional writers. So many pages of dreams torn out, turned into paper airplanes crashing into walls. Just waiting for that one to catch the wind and fly me away. Don’t get me wrong. I have a good life. A solid life. An amazing life. A life in which I am neither a success nor a failure. I just am. That should be enough. This life should be enough. And yet….there are times I read a book and I wish it could be my name on the cover. But if all you do is dream of castles in the sky, never digging out stones from the quarry, all you’ll ever accomplish is a pleasant waste of time. So I keep scribbling on another page, tearing it out, and starting again. And again. And again. Collecting pebbles in my pockets, keeping me down to earth, until I finally have enough stones to build my castle in the sky.