Dreams Can Come True on a Tuesday

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I’ve always been scared to be a writer. The excuses I’ve made, nearly all my life, for not pursuing this dream are a major source of contention with myself.

This past year I watched the short film 35, by Duct Tape Then Beer. It is only five minutes long but it is a sort of rallying cry for me. Two lines in particular really inspired me and got me thinking. The first line is:

We all have dreams, but they don’t mean much if we don’t act on them, if we put them in a drawer we label “Someday,” for when we think we’ll have more time.

One of my dreams that I have continually put into the someday drawer is to complete Vermont’s Long Trail. After watching 35 I set about figuring out how to complete it by the end of my 40th year. When my mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer I figured out how I could turn my passion for running and completing the Long Trail into a way to help fight cancer and started the project Running Down Cancer.

I’ve been thinking about writing more regularly on this blog lately, but I always talk myself out of it, usually by saying that I’ll have more time when the kids are in school. In the mean time I sit around thinking about writing, which is precisely when I should be writing. It is not hard to write a post a month, twice a month. Still I kept the writing dream in the someday drawer.  Then last week it occurred to me that if I can take the idea of running the Long Trail and turn that into a $5000 a year fundraiser for the American Cancer society, then why can’t I fugue out a way to write?

The fact of the matter is my dreams and thirst for adventure, your dreams and thirst for adventure can happen now. It does not matter if you have kids, a demanding job or not a lot of money. If you stop and think about it we can all figure out a way to weave our dreams into the fabric of our lives.

The other great line from the film is:

I refuse to believe joy costs something, or we have to get on a plane to find it, that it has to happen on our vacation, and that dreams can’t come true on a Tuesday.

So why do we always take the easy way out? Why do we say I’ll have more time tomorrow?  Really the only thing standing in our way are excuses. I’ve spent more time coming up with reasons not to do something than I have actually spent doing the things that I want to do.

In the weeks and months to come I hope I don’t use excuses to push my writing back into the drawer. I hope I am able to weave it into the fabric of my life and I hope you will follow along as I do so. If I don’t send me an email and tell me dreams can come true on a Tuesday.