Unfulfilled Dreams

We are told nearly from the time we are old enough to stand on our own two feet that we need to follow our dreams. Life is not truly fulfilling unless you are striving toward something that fills you with great joy and happiness. In fact we are told that if we aren’t striving toward our goals, then we are truly being less than human and not experiencing life to the fullest.

What happens though if the process of reaching toward our own true happiness causes another human to feel pain and anguish. Is our own personal goal truly worth another person’s unhappiness?

For many years I was in a loveless marriage because I got a girl pregnant. I had to put my own dreams on hold because I knew it was my responsibility to raise this child of mine right, because I didn’t trust her mother to know the right way. Then along came a second child, and my dreams were put further on hold.

I knew I was never cut out for the life of a regular 9-5 person, punching a clock day to day just to pay bills on stuff I never really wanted to begin with, and I promised myself that after I had raised my kids I would once again reach out into the world and strive for those goals that I once had.

See, it was always my dream to travel the world on a bike. To see everything there was to see that I possibly could. To write about it and to take pictures of it. To live.

A couple of years before my kids graduated from high school, my wife and I divorced, and this just fueled my dreams even more. I knew the time was coming close to when I could break away from the ordinary life and follow my own personal dream. I could live to be a person that I could respect. I had been a good father. I had stuck around and raised my kids with every bit of love and generosity that I could find, and I think they turned out pretty good, but now they were almost ready to go out into the world on their own, and if I never followed my dreams, how could I ever expect them to. What kind of example would I be if I never did those things I was destined to do.

Then the unexpected happened. While I was playing around during those first few years of freedom from marriage, I found my soul mate.

Honestly, she was never supposed to come along, as I never believed in the whole concept of “soul mate”. In fact, I had a hard time even believing in the concept of love, other than the love I had for my children. There it was right in front of me though, and I embraced it, and jumped right in to creating a wonderful life with this amazing woman.

Somewhere along the way, I kind of let the thoughts of my dreams and ambition take a back seat to this wonderful new love that I had found. All I cared about was finding ways to make her happy. Granted, it hasn’t always been that way, but we both try our very hardest to be there for each other. (If I was being honest with myself, I know she is there even more than I am.)

A couple of years have passed and we have been living in pretty much bliss for the most part … until recently.

I have been extremely unhappy for several months now, and it is getting worse. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, I was just angry for no reason, and coming to hate my life a little bit more each day. At first I blamed it on having to move 400 miles away from my kids to a city I have never really liked. Then I blamed it on the people in the city who can’t seem to accept me and my eccentricities. I blamed it on my job. I blamed it on the heat. I blamed it on the cold. Finally I came to the realization that it was none of these things.

The thing that is making me unhappy is me feeling stuck and not following my dreams.

Now my wife is the most supportive person in the world, and I know she would do whatever she could to make my dreams come true, much as I would for her, but the dream that I have requires things that I don’t think she can either do, or handle.

See, I plan on being on the road until the road stops, then finding another road and going down that one until it stops. And so on, and so on. My dream entails being out on the road for an endless amount of time, braving the elements, nature and encountering other not-so-savory or honest humans. I means and unending amount of nights sleeping in a tent, and maybe not showering for days or even weeks. It means sometimes having to go without a meal and having to live on the bare necessities.

My dream is not an easy life for even someone who dreams of it, let alone for someone who has never had that dream.

My heart fills with joy when I think about traveling, taking photos and writing. It is what I was born to do. I know that it is most definitely NOT the life for everyone. Hell it’s not the life for most people. Only a few people are cut out for that kind of existence, and I know I am one of those special people.

I wouldn’t wish that kind of life on my worse enemy if they didn’t choose to live it, let alone wish it on someone I love almost more than life itself.

The thing is, for me to live that kind of life, I would have to quit my job and sell pretty much everything I own just to buy the supplies I need for a few months. It would take a bunch of luck and perseverance to find a corporate sponsor or many individual sponsors to keep me on the road for any length of time.

I keep asking myself how can I make something like this work. How can I sell everything I own and still be able to find a way to take care of my soul mate?

Would she be able to handle that kind of life, riding a bicycle next to me as we travel sometimes 5 miles in a single day, or maybe 100 miles on a VERY good day. Living in a tent every night, pumping bicycle pedals all day. Could she live on MREs or what food I am able to forage and hunt for? Could she seriously go without a bath for a couple of weeks at a time.

My answer is: No, I don’t think she could.

So the next question I have to ask myself is: Can I make enough money through sponsorships to keep her bills paid so that she can live comfortably while I am on the road?

The answer: I seriously doubt it.

So if I can’t take her with me, and I can’t afford to pay her bills when I am gone, then what am I left with?

That is my quandary.

So each day I go over my possibilities and come to the same conclusions. I can’t leave and I’m unhappy staying. Each day I die just a little more inside as my dreams drift a little further and further out of my reach. Each day my body gets just a little bit softer because I am too depressed about the future and can’t bring myself to move off the couch to do anything about it.

When I am alone, all by myself, I can feel the tears running down my cheeks because I am too afraid to follow my dreams, because my dreams will cause another person to be hurt if I do follow them.

Each night I go to bed praying that I don’t wake up and have to face another day of this pointless existence of going to work just to pay for bills for things that I could care less to have. Each day I get just a little more angry and resentful of everything. Pretty soon I will no longer be the guy that she fell in love with, I will just be a shell of the man I once was, a shell filled with anger and unfulfilled dreams.

How is a person supposed to follow their dreams when their dream will cause another person to be unhappy?