What Happens When The Dream Comes True?

I am not sure I ever let myself truly dream on my future. That probably sounds silly to say if you’ve been following my career and my writing, but it’s true. I spent a substantial amount of time just trying to connect with my peers, and I never really had a dream job or a dream life or a dream anything. I hoped I would meet someone who loved me and that I’d have enough money to get by, but by the time I was 26, I wasn’t saving any money, I was about to have to start paying for massive Master’s degree debt (which I still have), and I wasn’t even in shape, which bothered me. I made $19,000 in 2012 (I remember my tax statement), and was almost a decade away from the diagnosis that would unlock so much of my self-perception.

You all know the story by now. I signed up for the (eventually canceled) 2012 NYC marathon, felt better about myself physically, got into a serious relationship that didn’t work out but helped me understand what I needed in a partner, met Alissa, got a more lucrative (but not actually good) job, used that job for a discount on my doc program, had a son, got my academic writing seen at the right time by the right people, wrote a book, got diagnosed, got a much better job, graduated, saw the book come out, and, since then, have gotten two more book deals and been highly praised at work and started to finally settle into my identity in a way I never had been able to before.

Most recently, I turned in the manuscript for my second book, Embracing the Exceptions: Meeting the Needs of Neurodivergent Students of Color. I sent it to the people I interviewed and none of them requested changes, so I forwarded it over to the publisher and waited for comments, assuming I’d receive requests to make major adjustments. I rarely bother to write for academic journals these days, but I remember what it felt like to be rejected because I didn’t match their format and style, so I still brace myself for harsh commentary even though, outside of the terrible bubble of academia, it rarely comes. And it didn’t. The publisher loved it, asked a few simple questions, and then sent it directly into production. Mind you, I turned this in almost nine months early, so it’s going to come out this September (most likely), even though the manuscript itself wasn’t even due until December.

I ended up with this book contract because, in 2020, I applied to write a chapter in an edited volume about white liberalism and was accepted. The editors were two authors with extensive experience working in schools and academic spaces on anti-racism, and they liked my proposal. The book came out earlier this year — you can buy it here — and so I reached out to them when I was getting itchy this past summer and trying to find a new project. One of the two worked with me on an idea — though even he would say it was mostly my idea — and I found my way to a story that he thought would resonate. So that’s what I wrote.

So this guy, he’s a big deal in equity and education. He’s now one of my biggest champions. He’s writing a blurb for my book. He’s going to ask another person in the equity in education space to write a blurb. And this book, this is not an academic book. This book is just interviews with fellow neurodivergent people of color, reflecting on their experiences as K-12 students, along with my own stories, which were clearly a way of exorcising some demons I’ve never really been able to share with the world. The book is for K-12 teachers, but is written accessibly, and is much easier to read for anyone, unlike my first book, which is accessible for academia, but that’s like saying Kilimanjaro is a relatively easy mountain to climb. Even if that’s true, why would you bother to test it out if you didn’t like mountain climbing?

I say allll of this to say, in the book I mention that as a five-year-old, I used to make up superheroes and write stories about whatever was in my head. My parents supported my writing and were happy to hear what I came up with. But once I got too bogged down in chasing my peers’ and teachers’ approval, I lost that love for writing, and never let myself dream what I finally can say I always wanted, that my writing — and, really, my ideas — would be seen as valuable and interesting.

And now it’s happening. It’s not the money, really, though I’m not gonna turn the money down; it’s not even the prominence, though that’s definitely going to grow; it’s the times that people read my work and tell me earnestly that it resonated with them. I try to write for the kid I was who lost that love of writing and creation, a kid who would spend hours just skipping in circles and coming up with ideas, who never understood why the world around him seemed to reject him, and who tried, and failed, to contort himself into the shape that the world would embrace.

People liked my first book. But let’s be clear — a Big Book in academia is like 1,000 readers. I’m happy they liked it, and I hope it mattered to them, and my third book will be another academic tome, mostly just to keep those intellectual muscles limber. But this isn’t that. This is my actual identity, and my dreams, in book form, and hopefully not for the last time.

So, when this book comes out, and I’m talking to people about it, and I am, officially, A Voice in the extremely niche space of “neurodivergence and race in education,” I don’t know what it will feel like. I’ve never been able to let myself feel unqualified joy for more than a fleeting moment because a part of me always fears something will go wrong and I’ll end up scared and socially isolated again.

I hope that I can allow myself to celebrate what I’ve accomplished. The kid I once was didn’t deserve to feel the way he did, but I think I deserve to enjoy how it will feel for the dream to come true, a dream I finally think I’m allowed to believe is real.