#MyNotImpossible: Celebrating All the Possible Things by Lindsay Lackey
Happy Monday! I am honored to turn over my blog to Lindsay Lackey for the day. Thank you, Lindsay!
Before I wanted to be a writer, I dreamed of being a singer. I majored in Vocal Performance in college and was working toward becoming an opera singer. It was a dream I’d had since I was a little girl, and it was impossible to imagine my life without singing at the center.
But halfway through my freshman year, everything changed. I began suffering severe pain, debilitating migraines, and a locked jaw. I was diagnosed with an open dislocation in both jaw joints—which meant my jaw was dislocated all the time. I needed years of physical therapy, braces, soft food, dental work, and eventually surgery.
As a result, I was forced to give up singing.
It was a long and painful road. I struggled with depression, had to face overwhelming financial decisions, and of course, needed to completely reevaluate my future and my identity. If I couldn’t sing, who was I?
Losing your sense of identity is disorienting, to say the least. When everything you thought you wanted, everything you’ve been working for, crumbles, it is easy to fall into the trap of despairing words—words like “impossible.”
Achieving my dream is impossible.
Achieving my dream is impossible.
Recovery is impossible.
Joy is impossible.
In my debut middle grade novel, All the Impossible Things, my main character, Red, is wrestling with her belief in what’s possible. After years in foster care, being shuffled from one family to another, Red has begun to believe that she doesn’t belong anywhere, except with her mother. The problem is, her mother is in prison. And worse, her mother may not believe they can be a family again once she is released. Red is desperate to prove to her mother that there’s a difference between hard and impossible, and that even if things seem impossible, they can still happen.
Red’s struggle to believe is one I know well. As I was facing my own seemingly-impossible future without the thing that had defined me for so long, I wrestled with the beliefs I’d held for years. You only want one thing. You’re nothing without singing. You don’t have what it takes to do anything else.
Thankfully, I had an incredible support system of friends, family, and medical professionals to help me navigate the darkest years. Slowly, I began to let other words in. Words like hope, renewal, and—the big one—possibility. When I allowed myself to believe that I was more than the things I thought I’d wanted, that my life’s purpose might surprise me, suddenly everything I’d thought of as my “impossibles” became my “not-impossibles.”
I used to believe that healing was impossible—but now I know it is my not-impossible. Joy is my not-impossible. New dreams are my not-impossible. I don’t have a career in opera, but what I do have are stories—like Red’s—to tell. Stories about hope and self-worth and love. I didn’t plan for this life, but now I am so grateful for it.
This week, as I launch All the Impossible Things into the world, I want to celebrate the “not-impossibles” we’ve all experienced. What have you overcome? What did you once believe to be impossible that you now know to be your not-impossible?
I invite you to join me in celebrating all the not-impossible things that make life beautiful. Please share your story using the hashtag #MyNotImpossible on social media. You’re welcome to download the templates provided if you’d like to create a visual story, or you can share your #MyNotImpossible in a video. However you feel comfortable!
I look forward to seeing your #MyNotImpossible stories, and sharing in the wild, incredible, surprising beauty of life. Please join me. Let’s celebrate resilience, hope, joy, and healing. Let’s celebrate all the possible things!
Joy is impossible.
In my debut middle grade novel, All the Impossible Things, my main character, Red, is wrestling with her belief in what’s possible. After years in foster care, being shuffled from one family to another, Red has begun to believe that she doesn’t belong anywhere, except with her mother. The problem is, her mother is in prison. And worse, her mother may not believe they can be a family again once she is released. Red is desperate to prove to her mother that there’s a difference between hard and impossible, and that even if things seem impossible, they can still happen.
Red’s struggle to believe is one I know well. As I was facing my own seemingly-impossible future without the thing that had defined me for so long, I wrestled with the beliefs I’d held for years. You only want one thing. You’re nothing without singing. You don’t have what it takes to do anything else.
Thankfully, I had an incredible support system of friends, family, and medical professionals to help me navigate the darkest years. Slowly, I began to let other words in. Words like hope, renewal, and—the big one—possibility. When I allowed myself to believe that I was more than the things I thought I’d wanted, that my life’s purpose might surprise me, suddenly everything I’d thought of as my “impossibles” became my “not-impossibles.”
I used to believe that healing was impossible—but now I know it is my not-impossible. Joy is my not-impossible. New dreams are my not-impossible. I don’t have a career in opera, but what I do have are stories—like Red’s—to tell. Stories about hope and self-worth and love. I didn’t plan for this life, but now I am so grateful for it.
This week, as I launch All the Impossible Things into the world, I want to celebrate the “not-impossibles” we’ve all experienced. What have you overcome? What did you once believe to be impossible that you now know to be your not-impossible?
I invite you to join me in celebrating all the not-impossible things that make life beautiful. Please share your story using the hashtag #MyNotImpossible on social media. You’re welcome to download the templates provided if you’d like to create a visual story, or you can share your #MyNotImpossible in a video. However you feel comfortable!
I look forward to seeing your #MyNotImpossible stories, and sharing in the wild, incredible, surprising beauty of life. Please join me. Let’s celebrate resilience, hope, joy, and healing. Let’s celebrate all the possible things!
A bit of magic, a sprinkling of adventure, and a whole lot of heart collide in Lindsay Lackey’s extraordinary middle grade debut about a young girl navigating the foster care system in search of where she belongs.
Red’s inexplicable power over the wind comes from her mother. Whenever Ruby “Red” Byrd is scared or angry, the wind picks up. And being placed in foster care, moving from family to family, tends to keep her skies stormy. Red knows she has to learn to control it, but can’t figure out how.
This time, the wind blows Red into the home of the Grooves, a quirky couple who run a petting zoo, complete with a dancing donkey and a giant tortoise. With their own curious gifts, Celine and Jackson Groove seem to fit like a puzzle piece into Red’s heart.
But just when Red starts to settle into her new life, a fresh storm rolls in, one she knows all too well: her mother. For so long, Red has longed to have her mom back in her life, and she’s quickly swept up in the vortex of her mother’s chaos. Now Red must discover the possible in the impossible if she wants to overcome her own tornadoes and find the family she needs.
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