I remember dreaming and imagining a lot as a kid. I am sure it started with my love of books, and that started so early, I cannot remember much of what sparked it. My imagining wasn't like other kids where I made up worlds or pretended. Instead, I dreamed of places, real places where real stories with real people took place. Where people were walking through their lives right now as I was reading about them.
My family didn't vacation much (read, at all), so I visited these places in my imagination for a very long time. We went on a couple of road trips to New Mexico to visit an uncle, but mostly, I made a mental list of all the places I would someday see, and I do believe those dreams fueled me. Of course, I couldn't really know what those places would be like only imagining them from some words on the page or, gasp, the library. No scrolling of pics and seeing the vast amount of detail available today. Even if I'd had the Internet, there's just no substitute for remembering those places. Meaning, having been there, experienced them, and then re-visiting that time in your memory.
As I finished high school and prepared for college, my singular goal was to build a life that would support my dreams of seeing places. I had never traveled far, and I wanted to transition my success and grades in high school to where it really counted. Of course I needed and wanted a career that would make for a happy life, but I also needed to build a foundation on which I could pursue dreams of a life like I'd read about in my books.
See this girl? This was college graduation day in December, 1995. This day only happened after: starting school at East Texas State University, getting married, moving to Dallas for the new husband's work, working full time while juggling school, moving back to Greenville to return to ETSU and take a full load of classes to accelerate graduating, and managing the strain of a long commute for the husband while I studied. And, I did it 4 1/2 years after finishing high school.
After the ceremony that day, we had gone back to the husband's family's house to open gifts and celebrate. I was reading a card here, one that I'm sure talked about chasing my dreams and fulfilling my potential. I remember this day fondly for so many reasons, most of all, because I feel like I stood at the beginning of a long and winding trail that would take me to some magical summits of those dreams I'd built through all the years that felt like they had gone by so slowly.
And guess what? I've been on that trail ever since that day, and I cannot even begin to describe the amazing "stops" along the way. If you've read my original blog, you know that my love for travel has only grown through the years, so much so, that the hubs and I re-located to a beautiful place where we can feel forever on vacation. I have seen beautiful places, met amazing people and learned so much history, and I feel like I'll never make it through the list of more I want to do. From seeing the Sistine Chapel on my first trip to Europe, to learning about the pueblos of New Mexico and hiking in Yellowstone, to an awe-inspiring three weeks in Germany, the experiences have all been full of richness and wonder, no matter how big or small. Most of all, I'm grateful that I no longer have to imagine. I spend my time between adventures remembering it all.
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