As I was moving out here, my dad kept telling me to look up a commencement speech he had heard Stephen Colbert give at Northwestern University.
I finally looked it up on one of my jaunts up the mountain to get service on my iphone and he has this part where he talks about going after the dream and when he was young, he had no idea that he would end up in a house in the suburbs, but he is happy. He says this on dreams:
“Dreams can change. You have been told to follow your dreams but what if it’s a stupid dream? If we’d all stuck with our first dream the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses. So whatever your dream is right now if you don’t achieve it, you havent failed and you’re not some loser. But if you do get your dream you’re not a winner.”
The young ones think it’s pretty cool. Hell, I think it’s pretty cool. When I was young, I met people like the now me and wanted nothing more than to be just like them. I guess it happened but now when they ask about the next adventure, the next hometown, I tell them I am done. Yes, I will still travel but like Colbert says, your wants and dreams change.
I find myself talking to my super together girlfriend, who is getting her fellowship at Harvard and I am finding us having similar opinions about what we want now in our 30 something lives. We took two totally different paths, she worked her butt off and made something of herself and I (as Munro puts it) followed my nose, dabbling in every curiosity that entered my mind and as some would think one doesn’t change, I think I got it all out of my system and I now my friend and I who lived two totally different lives in our 20s, have the same values and desires for our adult life.
For one, in my twenties I was determined to settled down in Europe or anywhere but the US and now, I am happy here, I like that my friends and family are in practically the same time zone.
I also thought it would be great to marry some passionate, musician type bloke who lived out of his bus but now, a good, solid and mellow man with some integrity is totally hot.
I used to want to live in a yurt and while, I still find it appealing, I’d take a well decorated house with a yurt/studio out back. Ah, my 20 year old self would call my 34 year old self a sell out, but I don’t care, I am happy with this want to put roots down, I feel like a completely different person. I don’t scoff at the past, I love and am proud of every bit of it. I have learned enough life lessons to sail through and enjoy the rest of it (i hope). And, really, I live in West Marin, it’s not like I am moving to the suburbs of, say, Boston. The people here are plenty weird and they kinda make my crazy self seem a bit normal and traditional.
My point is, my dad warned me as a youngster that I would change. I did not believe him. I thought I’d be riding horses across Argentina right now. I suppose I write this for the “newcomers to bumdom” (google that). It’s a fine balance we weave between growing up and keepin it real.
Thoughts? Are my fellow nomads feeling the same need to plant some roots? Are you all surprised at your wants and desires in your 30s?
xx