✨It started with a question.
The last of the cups had been rinsed. The ranch kitchen had slipped into that soft quiet where words echo longer than they should. None of the women moved to leave. They stayed in the circle, because letting go of this moment felt harder than holding on.
Raven tipped her chair back and studied the ceiling beams. “I keep wondering. When did dreaming become something we stopped doing? Was there a day, a season, a moment when it slipped away?”
Riley turned her mug slowly in her hands, tracing the rim with her finger. “For me, it wasn’t a single moment. It was gradual. I kept labeling things as impractical. Each time I did, it was like closing another door. I thought I was protecting myself. Really, I was shrinking my own world.”
Quinn leaned her elbows on the table. Her voice was even, but her eyes drifted to the window as if searching for proof outside. “Duty has a way of crowding out imagination. I can name the date of every border shift I managed, every policy that changed. But I cannot name the last time I asked myself what I wanted. My own wants felt irrelevant compared to the job.”
The silence that followed was thick but not uncomfortable. It pressed in like a question waiting for its turn.
Val exhaled, long and heavy, as though she had been holding the words for years. “Maybe we told ourselves that dreaming was childish. That grown women with responsibilities had no business imagining things that might never happen. But I think dreaming is the bravest thing of all. To say you still want something, even when the world tells you your time has passed.”
Skylar clasped her hands in her lap and gave a small smile. “Or maybe dreaming doesn’t end. Maybe it just changes shape. We mistake that change for loss. What once felt impossible may only have been waiting for the right moment, waiting for us to be ready.”
The lamps hummed overhead. A desert breeze rattled the door. Outside, the canyon held its own silence, as if listening.
Raven set her chair back down with a soft thud. “Then maybe the real question isn’t why we stopped. It’s when we’ll start again.”
Riley leaned in, her gaze steady on each of them. “So what would it look like if we started again? Not like before. Not the way we used to. But now. At this age. With who we are.”
Eyes lifted, one by one. No one spoke. They didn’t need to. The silence had changed. It no longer pressed like a question. It opened, wide and inviting, like a field they had just been handed the keys to walk into.
✨ My Reflection
Their silence reminded me of my own. I can remember when dreaming shifted from something bold to something I tucked away. From my earliest memories, I wanted to start my own business. But in the late 1960s, girls were expected to become teachers, nurses, or secretaries. I chose teaching, and that path carried me for twenty years before I finally opened my first business.
Now, another twenty years later, I find myself in “unretirement,” still holding on to the thread of that dream but in a new form. Fiction has become my next business, my next passion. What once seemed impractical is now the place where my imagination and my courage meet.
✨ Your Turn
If you gave yourself permission to dream again today, what shape might those dreams take now?
✨ If you missed the micro-stories, catch them here ⤵️
Life seems to be a process of re-invention. A newspaper journalist in the beginning followed by executive positions in operations management for an energy company…who could have predicted that? Then retirement and once more an open slate left me free in ways never considered: mentoring young women and an occasional young boy; giving my time and expertise to help a worthy cause or two; giving myself unlimited hours to wander mountain trails on foot or horseback. Life is magic and your stories tell the tales. Come visit me!!!!!
This is gorgeous already — quiet, resonant, layered. I’ll break my feedback into clarity, flow, and tension, plus some thoughts on the reflection.
Clarity
Each character has a distinct voice, which is great. To make them even sharper, you could give each woman a small physical anchor (a gesture, a tone, an image) so readers instantly feel who’s speaking without rereading. For example, Raven’s tilted chair is strong — you could give Quinn something equally grounding, maybe fingers steepled or her jaw tightening.
The silence as presence is beautifully handled. One tiny suggestion: the phrase “It pressed in like a question waiting for its turn” is excellent but could be even leaner: “It pressed in, like a question biding its turn.”my imagination and courage meet.”
If you want, I write about these kind of things (Cognitive Narrative) on my substack.