Dare to Dream Again
Just three months ago, I lived on a boat with my family - a catamaran we'd been dreaming about for years. It sounds weird saying that now with all that has happened, but it's true. It was supposed to be great. We were supposed to be sailing from New York to Maine this week. Needless to say, life had other plans, and now we have to dream again.
Since all of us are experiencing a few thwarted plans and delayed dreams right now thanks to the pandemic that has gone on longer than we expected (and that new normal we talked about last week), I thought you might relate.
We were 100% all-in.
We thought she would be the next long chapter of our family adventure story, but as it turns out, she was only a short one filled with more learning moments than adventure, more heartache than dreams realized.
No Worries was her name - a 38-foot Lagoon 380 catamaran that had been our dream home for years. But just a few weeks after moving aboard and launching into the list of countless boat projects that was to become our new life, a few things (including an unexpected surgery) happened to let us know the timing was off, and it became evident that we needed to get out.
So, we swallowed our pride, sold our dream boat, and stepped back to find our way again. Our big family dream, the big change we'd been planning for, hoping for, and telling all of our friends about was over, and we had a big family decision to make.
Do we tuck our tails between our legs and hide? Look for someone to blame? Try to pretend it never happened? Or do we take some time to gather strength and dare to dream again?
We're daring to dream again.
We're letting hope back into our hearts again.
We're starting over - again.
We're holding onto every good moment we shared and keeping the bad ones too as a reminder of the lessons we've learned. We're letting our hearts recover and encouraging them to soar again. We're stepping back, pausing for a beat or two, and reassessing. We're taking steps to recover financially, physically, emotionally, and as a family, and we're starting to talk about what other dreams we have again.
We're cautiously stepping forward into finding out what it would take to go after those new dreams. With a little more measure, pause, and premeditation, we're putting our toes in the water to see what might be next, realizing just how much we were sacrificing by going after that other dream and just how much we got back by admitting it didn't work.
We have space in our lives for new dreams now.
We can listen to how our kids are dreaming a little more too.
We can feel hopeful, full of possibility, and excited without having it all figured out.
We have a few more limits now too, but there will come a day when we can do a lot more again. In the meantime, we can lean into family togetherness like never before, embrace our new normal, and dare to start dreaming again.
Whether you're dealing with delayed plans to travel, attend big gatherings, or get outdoors in epic new ways or facing a bigger blow like the loss of a job, sickness, or even grief, I hope at some point you find yourself starting to dream again.
We want to do crazy fun things together with our families, but not at the expense of anyone. We want to make big, beautiful memories, but not if that means we're not safe, not healthy, not at our best. So we choose health. We choose each other. We choose the most important thing - being together, being real and true to ourselves, and going after everything we were created to experience when the time is right.
For our family, we knew we could have kept going and tried to make our boat dreams a reality. We could have pushed ourselves to stick to our course and achieve the sailing goals we had set, but we also knew it wouldn't be healthy for us in so many ways. Besides, any time one family member (or two, in this case) speaks up and says something is just too much for them, we stop and listen. It's a promise we made to each other when we started traveling full-time back in 2013, and we weren't about to go back on it for a little boat dream (or a big one). Instead, we're letting this dream go for now, and although it was heartbreaking at first, with everything that's going on right now, we're feeling so relieved, so hopeful, so full of possibility, but not before we felt the strain on our family - the strain that comes for all of us who experience a bump in the road, a disappointment, a failure. We've truly had all the feels this winter.
While we were deciding what to do to remedy our misstep, we also had to decide what was best for keeping our family connected every step of the way, and we knew we had to dare to dream again together to make that happen.
To talk about the possibilities around the dinner table.
To ask mom, dad, and the kids what we could do next.
To listen - really listen - to each person and value each dream.
To breathe in deep, open our minds, and let our hearts soar together.
As of this morning, while I sit here with coffee #1 on a chilly morning in North Carolina, we don't have our next season of life figured out just yet. We have plans to leave the south next week and head back to our little Airstream home in Maine for the summer, but we have no idea what life looks like for us after that. We're still dreaming, still hoping, still looking for our next family adventure, and meanwhile, we're leaning into an unexpected season of beautifully waiting, watching, and talking to each other about all of the dreams in our hearts.
Maybe you can relate.
Maybe you had a dream or two that was supposed to happen and then turned out to be a false start, a fumble, or a big, fat failure. Maybe it's time for you to dream again too.
What does daring to dream again look like with so much uncertainty in the world? Should every single thing be on hold right now - even our dreams? What does daring to dream again look like after a misstep? After a hard season? Or in the midst of one?
You're not alone. These are the questions we're all thinking about these days, and this weekend, I hope you find a quiet moment to sit with your journal and start dreaming on paper. I hope you find a break in the family dinner conversation to bring up the question, "What would you guys like to do when we're able to travel again?" And as you listen to the people you love (and your own heart too), I hope you feel hope rising in your soul.
In the coming weeks, I hope we all start to see that the hard times do, in fact, end, and the good times are that much sweeter because of them.