The Memory of Fruit

I am 35 today.  This terrifies me.  Saying "I'm 35," sounds so foreign.  J'ai trente cinq ans. But then again, I don't feel older or maybe I do.  The oddity of being a 35 year old undergrad studying for the GRE, stressing about grad school....I am living now like I should have in my twenties.  I am dedicated to grabbing the life I always wanted, the life that always slipped through my shaky fingers and haze of my twenties.  I am 35.  I have been to Spain and Amsterdam.  France is next, I will get there. 
While in Spain, I had a novel idea...literally, an idea for a novel.  I asked my teacher if my final assignment (a 12 page short story) could be the first 12 pages of my novel.  He agreed.  I was so excited.  Zany characters and existential plot lines dominated my thoughts while journeying through the Mediterranean coastline. I returned home, and couldn't write it.  The fire was gone.  It felt painful, typing empty words about flat characters. I regretted ever telling my teacher my plan.  I wanted to email him and tell him I would be turning in a regular short story and this novel thing was too much for me.  I composed the email twice, then hit cancel.  Yesterday afternoon, I opened my laptop.  Carlos started talking to me in his low voice full of poetry and history...his loss he couldn't accept.  Amanda annoyed me with her self involvement but bled my skin with her need to find something more than her southern life.  Resentment boiled for Maria and her cop.  A new character began to dance with bulls and red wine, glowing gold. I wrote.  I felt it.  This world became real.  Last night at around 2 am, I emailed my professor the first chapter of my novel.  I am wondering if this chapter could be self contained as a short story.  I could send it out to journals. I am in love with my novel again.
I suspect, as I continue to write, that I will encounter discontent and a willful urge to give up. Hopefully, I will be patient and wait for Carlos, Amanda, Vincente, and Maria to sing to me again.  It is their story.
A short snippet:

After a few slugs, Vincente ran around imitating the dance of a bull fighter.  He held his tan coat out teasing an invisible bull.  The sky glowed soft, sending flakes of gold into his eye. The town below was dark, with only a streetlamp here or there shining.   “I don’t need school like you.  I am going to be a matador.”  They were fifteen.  By sixteen, Vincente had left Orihuela.  He became famous.