A Big Dream Update
Last summer while taking a dip in the ocean with my friend Lori, I randomly looked over to her and said, “My god, I just want to live on the water so, so much! I’ve always wanted to live on the water. Why don’t I live on the water?” Without missing a beat, she said, “I know you do. It’ll happen.” And even though there were exactly zero opportunities, possibilities, or avenues at the moment, I knew it could happen too.
But I had talked to my family about my waterfront living dreams more than a few times. It hadn’t gone particularly well. We had different ideas and big goals for the next couple of years. Even my husband would only agree to think about living on a lake in retirement while I just wanted the ocean right away. “Doesn’t matter,” we said, “it’s not in the cards right now.”
Three months later, I was sitting around the fireplace at our women’s retreat talking about big dreams and how they start as little wishes ⤵
Part of our retreat activities for the weekend was sharing our next big goals and dreams as a way to get to know each other. When it was my turn to share, I was surprised to hear myself say “I want to be able to buy a little lake cabin for my family — an ‘upta camp’ as the Mainers call it.” It seemed like a silly dream to share, but it was an honest one. My husband’s lake idea had become my own. And although I admitted there were zero opportunities, possibilities, or avenues at that moment to make it happen, it felt like saying my dream aloud was important.
Two months after that retreat conversation, I was learning intentional vision boarding with my retreat partner Sara and our friend Anne, and I kept finding so many photos of lake cabins and families having fun on the lake ⤵
I clipped them all, pasted them into my vision journal, and started writing about what exactly my big dream could look like ~ more fun, more outdoor time together, more play in our lives, easier access to fishing and swimming and paddling, more sunsets, more coffee chats on the dock. I still had zero opportunities, possibilities, or avenues. I was just dreaming, but it felt important to get it all down on paper.
I knew I had no business dreaming about owning a lake house. We weren’t even talking about selling our house and we didn’t exactly have extra money lying around for extra houses. I knew it could take years or might not be in the cards at all. We’ve never lived on a lake, so there was a possibility that the dream was just a thought and it would pass. I knew it could change into a different things depending on my family’s goals, my work, the housing market, or any number of factors. But the dream of lake life with my little family wouldn’t leave me alone.
I’ve been vision-journaling about it ever since.
This is usually where someone says “and the rest is history”. Because as crazy as it sounds, this morning I am indeed writing to you from the lakehouse we moved into this week ⤵
It. Blows. My. Mind.
Seriously, it blows my mind that we’re living here. When we arrived on Wednesday, I almost melted into a puddle of tears just thinking about how many checkboxes of my dream this place ticks. And while I won’t bore you with long descriptions of the many steps, debates, and choices it took to get from that first whisper of a dream 15 months ago to today, there are quite a few disclaimers I should give⤵
1 ~ This place is temporary. We don’t own this slice of perfection (it’s not even for sale); we’re just renting here for a few months to try out lake life in Maine while the leaves change. When we leave here, we probably won’t be living on a lake again for a while. We might even be couch surfing during the Holidays so we can spend time with family. That’s why I’m saying my lake life dream has “started” coming true — we’re not over the finish line yet. We’re nomads for now.
2 ~ Technically my family is kind of homeless right now. While I’m certainly not comparing our situation to the true crisis homelessness is for so many people around the world and certainly even in our home state right now, it doesn’t escape me that we don’t have our own home right now. We’re drifters. That kind of uncertainty isn’t for everyone and wouldn’t be possible for us if we didn’t have the family we have and the jobs we have. We know we’re not truly homeless, and that’s huge.
3 ~ Most dreams don’t come true this fast. Most dreams take a while. Most dreams almost certainly take WAY longer than we ever expect them to. And there’s absolutely no reason I can think of why this one started happening within 15 months except for one little thing that possibly could have helped it along (something I usually get wrong) — I didn’t force it. I didn’t even try to force it. I couldn’t have forced it if I tried, so I didn’t. I literally watched this happen, and I’m in awe.
4 ~ It’s all information. We’re in learning mode right now and we’re okay with that. We still don’t know where we want to live full-time or even if we want to live in one place 12 months out of every year. We want to take this slowly and feel things out for a while before making any decisions. We know it’s incredible that we get to do this (which makes me more thankful for my job than ever before), and we don’t take it for granted.
Until we know more, we’re on lake time⤵
Now for the most important part. . .
If you know anything about why I write these emails, you know it’s not to make money (it actually costs me hundreds of dollars per year to do this and I rarely make that money back) and certainly it isn’t to get famous or brag or gain validation (it’s always a huge stretch for me to write anything truly personal). I write these emails for one reason and it’s this ⤵
“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told.”
~ Alan Keightley
I believe there are way too many people in the world who don’t believe their dreams are possible or even all that important when compared to all that’s going on in the world today and all we could be doing.
There are way too many people who feel stuck in life or trapped by past choices, current circumstances, or a debilitating fear of making the wrong decision. Way too many people who think they’re too ordinary, too old, too overweight, too young, too unpopular, too undeserving for their deepest desires to actually come true.
Way too many people believing amazing things only happen for others. Way too many people living lives they never wanted to live because they don’t know it’s possible to live the one they’ve imagined or because they believe they can’t have the life they want and also love their family, friends, or the world well.
And far too many of those people are women.
But I believe when we see someone who looks a little like us ~ someone who’s also regular and kind of unpopular, overweight, getting old, and pretty ordinary ~ finding ways to live their dreams and being truly blown away by the magic happening to them, that’s when the truly magical can happen for the rest of us.
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I share my big-dream-coming-true stories so you can see your big-dream-coming-true story is possible, too.
I want you to see your dreams as 100% possible. More than possible. And so important, too. I share so that you won’t give up on that dream life or dream job, house, business, family, car, foundation, mission, book, painting, adoption, career, partner, degree, relocation, or whatever else you’ve been dreaming of.
✨
I share to answer your biggest “but how?!” questions.
Because the truth is that dreaming is only the first step to living the life you want. There’s so much more to it, so much that only happens when we share our dreams with people who will encourage them, when we learn new truths and strategies from each other, and when we start growing in ways we never thought possible until now.
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So that’s it for this week, my lovely. A little bit of possibility from my corner of the world to yours. I hope that’s always what you find here on Friday mornings in this little email group of ours.
And if you want to go deeper, if and when the time comes that you’re ready to take steps toward your big dream and you need a little more than email conversations to help you along, I hope we can find a way to chat in person one day. I hope I can meet you for coffee if we’re in the same town or have you over for a workshop or retreat somewhere sometime.
If that’s you. . .
The next in-person gathering where I’ll be talking about these big dream how-to questions is at the Well + Wander women’s retreat on October 25-28 at the beautiful Yellow House Inn in Bar Harbor. We have 7 women joining us so far (+ me and Sara), and we’re finalizing our retreat agenda right now. That means we have two rooms left, so space for just 2 more women (or 4 if you share your room with a friend).
If you want to join me there, I’d love to have you.
This is the retreat where, back in 2021 when I was a retreat participant, things really started to shift in my life (Here’s the blog I wrote about that original retreat experience and my Instagram post from October 2021.)
This is the retreat where we hosted a big creative reset for a small group of women last year around this time, and I left that weekend feeling like anything was possible for the first time in a very, very long time. (Here’s the blog I wrote after last year’s retreat and my Instagram debrief from October 2023.)
If you’re interested, you can find details and book a spot here. Or of course, shoot me an email and ask all your questions.
Whatever’s going on in your world today, whatever’s on your heart and in your mind this morning, I hope you know you’re not alone and you’ve got all kinds of love coming your way from this little lakeside corner of the world where I am.
