“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.”
― John Lennon
We all have a dream.
I have one too.
Before I get into it, I should probably say that for the most part, I’m already living a lot of the dreams I had when I was younger. A good family. A business I built myself. The freedom to make a lot of my own choices. I’m extremely grateful for all of that.
But there has always been one dream hanging around in the background since my early 30’s.
In my version of it, Sarah and I are driving up the Maine coastline toward Acadia National Park in a 1988 VW Vanagon with the kids piled in somewhere behind us.
We’re going nowhere fast because the thing tops out at about 55 mph, but that’s kind of the point.
The family is loaded up. We’re stopping wherever we want. Exploring small towns. Hiking. Eating at random places we find along the way. No jobs. No responsibilities. No schedule.
And somehow, for reasons the dream never bothers to explain, we have an unlimited supply of money.
There’s something about that kind of freedom that has always appealed to me.
Load up an old van with Sarah and the kids and just go see America.
No rush. No itinerary packed down to the minute. Just figure it out as we go.
I’m sure Matt Makes on TikTok has poured a little gasoline on this dream too. Watching him travel to the Arctic Circle in a remodeled U-Haul truck makes me more than a little envious.
I think the sense of adventure probably started much earlier though.
Books like Into the Wild, The Call of the Wild, and Race Against Death: A True Story of the Far North have always pulled me in. There’s something about people heading into the unknown, surviving, exploring, and figuring things out as they go that has always fascinated me.
Will we ever actually do it?
Probably not.
Logically, it doesn’t fit our life very well right now. The kids are growing up, everyone has their own schedules, and Sarah and I have built a life that comes with responsibilities we actually care about. And if I’m being completely truthful, the older I get, the less excited I am about spending my free time underneath an old Volkswagen trying to figure out why it won’t start.
And that’s okay.
Maybe some dreams are better as dreams.
When life gets loud, it’s nice to imagine all of us somewhere on the Maine coast, moving slowly, stopping when we want, and having nowhere in particular to be.
What’s your version of that? What’s the dream you find yourself coming back to when life gets a little too noisy?
Speaking of having my head in the clouds, I’ve got to call myself out on the birdwatching front.
Twice in the last week I’ve managed to have SD card problems at exactly the wrong time.
The first time, I headed out and realized the card was still sitting in the computer at home.
The second time, determined not to make the same mistake, I brought the card with me but apparently didn’t take the extra two seconds to make sure it was actually locked into the camera correctly.
Of course, that was when the good birds showed up.
I’m chalking both of those up as learning experiences and hoping I’ve now made every SD card mistake available to me.
Now for the weight loss update.
I’m back in my 20s.
The 220s, that is.
That was a big milestone for me. I’ve got about eight or nine pounds left to hit my goal, and with about three and a half months left in the year, I feel like I’m in a pretty good spot.
More importantly, I can feel the difference.
My knees are happier. Walking feels easier. I just feel better moving around.
Diet has probably taken me about as far as it can on its own, so I’ve had to step up the fitness side of things. Thankfully, these cooler evenings are making it a lot easier to get outside and walk a couple of miles.
So that’s where things stand.
Still chasing birds. Still chasing a few pounds. Still daydreaming about Sarah, the kids, and an old Volkswagen making its way up the Maine coast.
Some dreams are plans.
Some are motivation.
And some are just nice places to visit when you need to get out of your own head for a while.
Before I wrap this one up, here are a few things I’ve been reading lately. I also recently discovered a great site called Garden & Gun, and the first three articles on this week’s list came from there.