Dreams are fucking hard work.
Despite what every feel-good-happy-ending movie has lead you to believe, it takes more than a peppy soundtrack and training montages to achieve your dreams.
Hell, even with support, passion, perseverance, love, loyalty, all-nighters, fans, friends, the occasional foe, coffee, gin, coffee + gin (editor’s note: who drinks coffee with gin? Whisky goes in coffee), sleepovers in Manchester, pocket-sized Rafael Benítez action figures, the Barenaked Ladies (I may be getting too specific…), dreams don’t always come true.
And we’ve learned that the hard way.
The dream we had—to create an empowering platform for non-male soccer writers, artists, and creators—failed. Despite our best efforts, constant hustle, and neverending grind, things happened that were beyond our control. We won’t bore you with the details (we have the chat logs covering all that), but to sum it up, we had major hurdles around health, wealth, and happiness.
The result? Our dream of Unusual Efforts did not come true. We have not sent out the hard copy magazine. We have not published in quite some time. Our Twitter is often silent, our other social media pages more or less dead.
As it turns out, building a publication company, from scratch, with minimal resources, across two different time zones (except for the aforementioned 24 hours we were together in Manchester) is not easy. In fact, it’s not even plausible.
Well, at least, it’s not plausible on its first go.
So, screw that first dream and let’s move on to our second. After all, that’s the wonderful thing about dreams: they’re always dynamic and never static. And when one dream fails, a new one rises from the ashes.
I mean, just look at Toronto FC’s 2017 season; some dreams are worth fighting for (editor’s note: some of us do not support this analogy).
And that’s exactly what we’re going to do: we’re going to keep fighting. We are going to admit our mistakes, acknowledge our failures, and own up to our fuck ups. Even if some things were and remain out of our control, we are going to accept them and figuring out what to do next.
Because at the end of the day—despite everything that has happened both personally and professionally—Unusual Efforts is worth fighting for.
So stay tuned and watch this space, because we’re back, baby. Louder, stronger, and tougher than before. We will need your help, whether you are a creator, a supporter, or simply someone who has a few ideas on how we can succeed. But we will keep this platform alive.
On to Dream Two. Andiamo.
Much love,
Sonja & Kirsten
