4 of my secret hopes & dreams.

When was the last time you sat down with a pen and paper and actually laid down some dreams for the future? I don't mean "get a promotion"-- real, big, scary dreams?

It was around two o’clock and the fog still hadn’t burned off. The entire barrier island I’ve been calling home was still the same homogenous blue-grey, swamp-like, almost. July heat was here in full force. I kept expecting for the sun to peek out, but by 2, I abandoned hope.

I’d planned to go get a coffee and do some writing, put pen to paper on my secrets, dreams, personal goals. I’ve been putting it off for a while. I knew we’d leave to play pickleball sometime around 5 PM, and I was already counting down the hours, giddy to get to go play outside. The bakery a few blocks down had already closed for the day, so I hopped in the Jeep— well, the Jee… the “p” fell off the Jeep insignia at some point a few weeks ago— and drove all the way to the Atlantic Beach Bridge to swing by Sea City Vintage. I manically changed the song every 30 seconds until I got there, nothing quite pleasing me but Sabrina Carpenter’s cover of Chappell Roan’s Good Luck Babe¹.

When I got to Sea City, the bell tinkling as I pushed the heavy door open, it was empty, as I expected it’d be on a foggy Tuesday afternoon, out of the way in Atlantic Beach. It took a few minutes for someone to come out of the back room and to the counter, and I drank in how clean the store was. The floors were sparkling, the smell of a crisp Rockaway Candle Co candle tin burning, muffins sitting pristinely in the acrylic display case. I’d known of Sea City Vintage long before I popped in for the first time a few weeks ago— they sell the wares of one of my favorite Rockaway Beach makers, Gym Class Surfers. I’ve been dying for one of her vintage sweatshirts with the varsity patches for years.

When my cold brew was poured and it came time to settle in at one of the handsome patio tables to write, I realized, of course, that I had forgotten a pen.

Isn’t that always how it goes?

Don’t you somehow always forget the fucking pen?

I sat and read my Kindle for approximately seven minutes, before the gnats got to me, and then I hopped back in the Jeep Jee and blasted Could You Be Loved on maximum volume with the windows down, feeling great. I don’t listen to enough Bob Marley, I thought to myself. The answer is probably almost always Bob Marley.

On the way home I noticed the sun had come out.

Mm. I forgot the pen. But then again… the sun came out.

When was the last time you sat down with a pen and paper (no, not the Notes app, a pen and paper) and actually laid down some dreams for the future? I don’t mean dreams like “get a promotion”— real, big, scary dreams? Things that you are scared to say out loud lest someone discourage you, or worse, you are forced to confront the fact that what you want may not be possible, available or doable? It’s the latter that keeps a lot of my dreams locked inside— the idea that I can’t do some of these things feels so painful that I’m not sure I can bear it.

For me, there’s also an element of insecurity: I already started a business and got to “follow my dreams” once at 26. I wasn’t successful— in the traditional sense where being successful means getting rich— why should I be allowed to have a go at it again? Who would possibly back me?

Good, glad we got that out of the way early, because I’m not going to acknowledge it— or let it bother me— again today.

But reader, what if you did sit down and do this? What would you find?

I’ve had a month or so since that day I sat down to write this all out to crystallize it, dwell on it, talk about some of it with friends— but as we know, dreams really become real when we speak about them loudly. What would happen if I shared the contents of my journal? Can any of it come true?

When I did finally remember to bring a pen with me, this is what flowed out of it.