Wooden horses and lighthouses.

Atlanta, Austin, New Orleans, San Francisco, Hoka Minnesota,Savannah, they're all places, places I've been, places I haven't been. All places I will live, all places I need to experience. Everyone has destinations, dreams, hopes and plans they'd like to see happen someday. The thing about someday is someday never just comes. Someday takes more than a daydream or a manic episode, it takes a plan and the focus and drive to act on that plan. John Lennon said "Life is what happens while you're making other plans.", we have all experienced this and know it to be an accurate observation. It's a fair warning that plans like rules are meant to be questioned, challenged, forgotten, faulty and broken. Faith, hope, experience, perseverence and wisdom are major contributors to the completion of any plan big or small. The plans we make, the dreams we have are all possible if we commit to kicking the roadblocks down. The world is filled with people who turn around at the sight of a road block and never venture to look back. There are others of us that maybe not the first time, maybe not the fifth time but eventually we will power on through the roadblock and take the path we planned despite the unknown. I've made as many roadblocks as I've knocked over and I'm sure to make and find plenty more along the way, but eventually they all come down.

I've had a million different plans over the years, some more ridiculous and outlandish than others but the ones that have happened and the ones that will happen are generally planned well in advance. The plans of the past have taught me well, to plan better, to be prepared for glitches and to watch for signs, literally and figuratively. I've spent most of my short life planning escapes into dreams out of realities and out of dreams into realities. I have no doubt that when I'm old and gray, rotting away in the old folks home, I will have the best stories. I know what it looks like out there in the world outside of Connecticut and I have no intention of leaving without a little more than I came back with last time, but I have every intention of leaving. For now the plan is simple, finish this ten year associates degree, spend as much time with the people I love as possible, move to New Orleans, learn some shit, help some people, live a little and love some more. Is this easy or perfect or what you'd want to do? No way. Is this what I'm going to do? More or less, yes.

The thing is most people don't consider that they really can be the firefighter or the cowboy, the nurse or the teacher, the astronaut or the rockstar. For most people the child they were turns into the adult they never wanted to be and thats the end of dreams. Everything I wanted to do when I was ten, I've done and 17 years from now I want to be able to say everything I wanted for myself at 27, I've accomplished. No ones life is easy and nothing worth having comes easily but everything we want is possible if we just remember ourselves. I don't always know where I'm going exactly, or when I'll get there but if I really want to go anywhere in life, I'll go. There will always be setbacks, there are no smooth rides and there are no easy out buttons, but the possibility for someday to become next year, next month, next week or tomorrow is much closer to real than most people seem to realize anymore. I've spent some time without a plan, stepped into the drone shoes and drank the koolaid for awhile and now more than ever I know that is not who I am meant to be. Sometimes knowing who you aren't is enough to keep you kicking through roadblocks and gasping for air. I'm not walking up all these stairs just to walk back down, I'm gonna brave the rain, step outside and love the view from the top. Are you?