Digging Up Dreams

You know how it is. We all have dreams. Some we’ve carried around with us all our lives, and some are fairly new. But more often than not, we have even more dreams that we have buried – we’re too old, too broke, we don’t have time, we’re not smart enough, not talented enough, it was a stupid thing to think we could ever do THAT.

I read about a show that’s on MTV called “The Buried Life”. The precept of the show is four guys ask the rather common question, “If you had one day to live what would you do?” But then they go further and ask “Now if you had a whole lifetime to live, would you lose that drive or would your list just get longer?”

These four guys made a list of every thing they wanted most in life, loaded themselves on a tour bus, and decided to go after these things and, of course, made a television show out of it so saps like me would think “Gosh, if those young bucks can do it, so can I!”

Better yet, for every one thing that these guys accomplish on their list, they help a stranger do something they’ve always wanted to do. Do you think they’d help me get published? Okay, so that requires a little work on my part I guess.

I admit I haven’t actually watched an entire episode of this show but I did check out their blog where you can view some clips.

The thing is, these guys are very young. The experiences they are going after, like having the most bad-ass party ever, are a little outside of the range of my desires. which include:

• Finishing one of my three books in progress and get it published.
• Take a two week road trip to New Mexico and Arizona.
• My son now has me fantasizing about a trip to London and hanging out with the 20-somethings at all the cool, underground parties. OK. Maybe I’m not too far off from the Buried Life crew.
• And there’s my ultimate horse vacation dream.

In early 2008, I sent away for a catalogue of Equestrian Vacations. Talk about a fantasy! You can take Classical Dressage lessons with Nuno Oliveira in Portugal, or experience a cattle drive in Australia or ride from Inn to Inn in Galway. There are even horse vacations in Africa.

My heart is actually racing just thinking about taking one of those trips. Who’s game to go with me? Because that’s always been the issue, well, there is the money issue too, but that’s easier to overcome than the fear of taking such a big trip on my own. But I suppose, like many of my riding pursuits, I can do it, but it’d be nice to have one familiar face along for the ride.

The guys on The Buried Life manage to pursue their dreams without any real money. Like with the party, they were running around trying to get people to volunteer the use of their house for their party. I’m not sure how that ended up. But you hear about bartering or trading to pursue your dreams. Like someone in California wants to spend the summer in France and someone in France wants to spend the summer in California and they trade living spaces. No one wants to trade living spaces in the winter with someone living in Minnesota, unfortunately.

I bought a book called “Six Months Off” a couple years ago that’s about how to plan, negotiate and take the break you need without burning bridges or going broke. Of course it was written before the most recent economic crash. But still… it could be possible, couldn’t it?

Don’t we deserve at least 6 months of our lives to go pursue our dreams because to be honest, given the economic climate and health care non-coverage, I don’t expect to ever retire. And waiting until retirement to do the things you really want to do doesn’t work out for many people.

As I was writing this and thinking about travel dreams, I received a phone call and offer to visit the east coast. I could even bring my horses and dog. There are barns, beautiful places to ride, woods for dogs to romp in. Even if I can’t find a way to go, it was such a generous offer and heart warming phone conversation that just that in itself was magical.

And who knows, these things are not impossible. They are not out of my reach.

It’s time to dig up some dreams.