Do you remember your life before you were seven years old? Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a writer.
I wanted to connect with people through the power of words. I wanted to understand and be understood.
I’m dyslexic, so that dream felt pretty impossible. But it was still my dream. I played writer anyway. I pretended to be an author. I held imaginary book launches and book signings, gave autographs to invisible readers in my childhood bedroom.
Then I grew up and heard all the usual things. Do something else. Books don’t sell. No one will read what you write. Stop daydreaming. Get that out of your head.
So I didn’t become a writer. At least not officially.
I became corporate assistant to a hospitality CEO, and many years later, an Economist.
Life got busy and hard. I never had time to write a full book. But I never stopped writing. I wrote on napkins, in notebooks, on scraps of paper shoved into bags and drawers. The thread was always there, pulling me back to myself, and I kept saying later.
Later, when I had time.
Later, when life was quieter.
Later, when I was allowed.
I stayed busy instead. Corporate jobs. Long hours. Shopping for things I didn’t need, trying to fill a space that didn’t want filling. It wanted listening.
Then COVID happened. My hospitality career stopped overnight. Everything got quiet. Lockdown. And in that quiet, I could hear myself again. I started writing—not for an audience or an outcome—just to stay close to myself. I’ve never felt more like me than I did then.
A few months later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Urgency showed up, and I listened. It asked me if I was really going to leave this earth without doing the things I always wanted to do. I said no. I said I would do everything I could with whatever time I had.
That’s when my real life started, at 38.
Cancer stayed with me, coming and going as it pleased. It changed how I see time. It forced questions I couldn’t avoid. What do you leave behind? What’s unfinished? What still wants to be said?
So I wrote more. Because I was afraid of disappearing without leaving something behind. Something for people like me. Neurodivergent people. Cancer patients. Or you—the reader I imagined when I was a little girl.
I wrote the book. Between surgeries, chemo, and radiation appointments.
I wrote the book, and my proudest moment came in June 2025.
It was published.
But you didn’t come… at least not yet.
Maybe you’re reading this in the future.
Maybe you’re here now, and that’s what matters.
Maybe you’ll read my book, hear my voice, and find a little companion worth keeping, and that can travel in your pocket.
Come spend 154 pages with me, and maybe you will learn a little bit about yourself along the way.
Don’t forget to grab a pastry and a hot cup of tea, or coffee, and please serve me one too—because I’ll be right there with you, and I love coffee.
(I can smell the aroma already!)
@lbfisher
—
Luciana Fisher
Leave a Reply