I’ve been following dreams for over 40 years, well really the same dream of traveling, writing, and taking photographs. I didn’t really plan for the future because I never dreamed of getting old. Now, I don’t know how to retire. But I’m working on some ideas.
I remember the days when I was on the go-go-go all the time but now my old go-go boots haven’t danced in a while and my get up and go often seems gone. (Yes, I was a go-go girl 50 years ago.) I don’t want to give in to old because I’m still young at 67 years around the sun. Yet my motivation is truly lacking as I drag myself out of bed for a nine-hour work day, and even on days off. I’m dreaming of not working but haven’t figured out what to do instead. Have to buy cat food you know. I don’t feel done following dreams of travel because there’s still much to see and do. Yet, I’ll admit it’s getting more difficult to keep up alone, especially the physical demands with RVs. Always a to-do list: the should dos, the must dos and the I don’t wanna’ dos often overlap. And I’m an excellent procrastinator with many excuses when I don’t wanna’ do something. Not always to my advantage.
I don’t want to be following dreams like I’ve woke up from recently. They feel more like nightmares. What does it mean when a woman at MVD is asking irrelevant questions when I’m trying to get a motorcycle license? I don’t even own a motorcycle. Trying to find my way around in a huge house is a nightmare of feeling lost. Sometimes I write blog posts in my sleep. Only wish I could send them into cyberspace that way. I dreamed of finding a man to fix my camper, and a bicycle I also don’t own. I really don’t want any two-wheeled vehicles. But sure could use a handyman so that’s not a bad dream. Instead, I may have to figure out how to fix it myself. I don’t wanna’.
I’m dreaming of this post already written and posted as I am way behind for the month of June. At least I finally got out for sunset.
Woke up on the 5th to this eerie smoky orange colored sun. Could be from a couple fires to the north, west, or south. I’m dreaming of people being more cautious with campfires, cigarettes, and parking on dry grass. There are fires all over already so now I’m dreaming of rain.
Current dirty window view of stinky horse corral and Mule deer
Been looking into some possible RV Parks for the 5th-wheel this winter to use as a base. Maybe where I lived before in Kirkland, or another park in nearby Skull Valley. These places are south of Prescott and north of Yarnell, Arizona. Not quite full winter weather at about 5000 feet, I hope, but not really desert either. I’m dreaming of reliable internet and phone signal someplace with a few trees and a view. A central location for travels to the Sonoran desert within a few short hours. Of course part of this move includes getting both RVs moved.
My work weeks are more of the same, some days a Hoodoo geology talk, once a week an evening program about Bryce wildlife, all days include many hours at the outside information tables by the visitor center/administration building.
Navajo Mt 90 miles to the Southeast
Molly’s Nipple 35 miles South
Panoramic view South of North Kaibab Plateau on horizon 100 miles away
My favorite schedule is the drive to the end of the scenic road, Rainbow Point, then two scheduled Grand Staircase geology talks and lots of questions in several hours of roving (hanging out with the beautiful view).
Indian Paintbrush
Summer flowers are just beginning to bloom on this Solstice Day. My favorite season of the year begins yet I may not be so sad to see it over this year as I’m dreaming new dreams for the future.
Are you following dreams or dreaming new dreams? What are they?
Dear Gaelyn. I popped over to read this post ; LOVE it! I am so busy at present, with my four jobs. I dream of writing (I’m making time to blog more regularly) and taking more photos and travel again. I would have to do it in a car. I dream this dream,
How do you keep up with for jobs, plus blog? I am impressed. Would love to see you you traveling again. Keep following those dreams.
I hear you! I retired from burnout. You can’t care for dying parents and teach full-time!
That said, my first year I wrote a book (2007). It’s durned difficult to flog a book without a publisher.
Then what? I did hospice, that’s gone to hell. The pandemic really messed things up.
I have few goals and dreams. Just day-to-day, a blog a day.
I’ve no motivation. Am I helping??!! Sorry.
We loved our day trips, sometimes staying over in a hotel/motel for a night. That’s gone to hell!
This year, you’ll laugh, we’re having the driveway redone. The price of real estate. We need it done to be able to use the snowblower.
When I first typed ‘retired’ is typed retried. It’s a retry.
I wish you all the best, dear woman. You deserve it. You’ve done so much to educate humans in your parks.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. All estate takes maintenance, I just don’t want to see snow. You’ve done much in your life to help others, and still do.
Despite being 76 now my travel dreams are still alive. With 13 great Snowbird years under our belts and these past couple of winters stuck at home I’m still hoping and dreaming of returning to the great American Southwest at some point. If we lose our dreams we lose our future,
You are right. Dreams are our futures. I believe you’ll be basking under the SW sun once again. Thanks for the reminder.
Being from the East, I feel I have been fortunate to follow and achieve two dreams in my one lifetime already. In 1992, the dream of seeing the Southwest and actually standing on top of Hoover Dam brought tears to my eyes and I knew I would live somewhere in the Southwest someday. 2010 Dream #2 achieved when fate presented an opportunity to actually make the move. Two dreams came to realization with no regrets. After a major loss in 2017 I too have been struggling with just exactly what my dream is now. Tried to jump and make a career change and bottomed out with that. Can’t retire yet but not sure now that I will ever totally be able to do that when it does come time. I would have to have a plan of “doing” something preferably associated with the outdoors. That’s where I’m at now. I guess what I’m trying to say is stay true to you, make the best plan you can and then jump. I’ve learned nothing is permanent and it takes an action to get a reaction. I’m trying to keep life simple and currently rethinking my next plan of action. Best wishes and positive energies to you Gaelyn in your continued dreams and reinvention of what you would like out of your one precious life. Hugs.
I understand that dream moving west, as I did too many decades ago. Making a dream like that happen is fulfilling. I’m not sure I can afford to retire either as I have no plan beyond SS. Talking, or in this case writing, about ideas helps me a lot and I love the ideas and support from you and other readers. Thank you.
Hi Gaelyn, It’s very difficult to retire when you enjoy what you are doing So, I think the time to retire is when your body seems to be telling you to do so. I and my partner were running a small business and I was retirement age then and soon noticed how tired I was becoming and couldn’t cope with the necessary things entailed with the business. We closed the business and decided to move to Crete .However, I knew i would need something to do once settled here. So I contacted the Institute for Aegean Prehistory Study Center for east Crete and volunteered to work on the Minoan and Mycenaean pottery, this had been my job in England before the business. I am now 87 and still studying as you know Gaelyn. So what I am saying is, maybe you can find something to do connected to your work but maybe online,such as teaching others as to how you go about your work,or even an entirely new project online. I still go for walks and try keeping myself fit. Anyway, Good Luck and don’t be afraid to retire. You will enjoy it !!!
You are an inspiration Rita. I’ve always said, when I quit learning I’m dead. Guess for now, I’ll keep thinking out loud until the right idea comes up. Thanks for the moral support.
I’m curious as to the number of visitors to Bryce so far this summer. I’ve been reading that many of the more popular National Parks have been closing the gates and limiting the number of people.
As you know, we retired on the early side and we’ve never been so busy. It just seems as if when you close the book on one chapter, a multitude of new chapters present themselves. It comes down to a leap of faith, and you’ll know when the time to take that leap presents itself. It will just become clear to you. It’s how it happened with us. We started purposely and slowly setting things in motion and then 3 years later the new chapter presented itself and we jumped. Never looked back, no regrets.
You’ll know when you know.
I think you two are an inspiration for following dreams. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I know I’m not the first to go through this dilemma and truly appreciate the feedback. My forward view is just foggy right now.
Visitation is definitely up, don’t know the numbers, yet still lack internationals for the most part. We’ve only had to close the gate over a couple hours during the Memorial Day weekend, however parking lots fill and close daily. Thank goodness for the shuttle. I believe we’ll see park entry reservations in the near future.
Keep following those dreams.
Hi Gaelyn, enjoyed this post.. I always had visions of retiring in Rhodesia, but then that country did a vanishing trick. I still dream though of living in a small chalet in the centre of a national park somewhere in Africa, that though is hardly likely to happen now. We have stones and mortar in France in the country and I am happy here, but how I miss the wildlife of Africa. I get so jealous when friends tell me they are just off to Addo or Thembe for the weekend. Retiring in France was planned so we could travel anywhere we felt like it, and as often as money would allow. Then along came COVID, all our dreams and planned holidays cancelled. We both though feel we were lucky to be in a place with a large garden, many insects and quite a few birds, not quite the same as a leopard in the tree outside, or an elephant coming for a drink, It could though have been much worse. We might have been stuck in the UK in a tiny house, no garden as such and very noisy neighbours which is what we left behind.
Keep dreaming and the right one may just come along, I have 10 years on you and not quite so long to dream, but I try. Best wishes from us both and hugs Diane and Nigel.
I love the idea of living in a chalet in a SA park surrounded by wildlife. Yet your place in France seems very nice as a location to travel from. COVID really screwed up a lot of people’s lives, but hopefully not forever. Thanks for the moral support while I work on this next life step.
I enjoyed the wander through your dreamscape and I get it! I do believe dreams are trying to tell us something, but I’ve never figured out how to interpret what that is )). But I can well imagine you are ready for a change … you are working so hard! (Of course I’m much older than you are, so the thought of nine hour days is foreign to me by now.). I forgot about Kirkland Az until I checked your old post. For a minute I thought you’d lost your mind and were thinking of wintering in Washington state, where Kirkland would be very wet and crowded and not at all fun.
Most sleeping dreams remembered escape me for meaning. I am ready for change, just struggling with change to what and where. Although I’d love to visit WA again, I don’t see myself living there. Thanks for listening to my raves as I try to work this out.
Life is short so get it going on the next adventure. Don’t be too concerned about what to do other than where to live as things will just evolve and you’ll have more to do than you do now but at least different. Move your butt and get with it. :O) Then you won’t have a routine and can get more fun things done.
Bob
LOL! Thanks Bob for the kick in the butt I sorely need. This will be the last season at Bryce, and possibly as a Ranger. Living mobile for so long picking a place to live is harder than I thought it would be.
The photographs are so beautiful, and give only a hint now and then of the complex thoughts that are crawling around in your writing. I know it has been coming for a bit….this shift…and trying to decide what is next. I think your dreams are preparing you for the changes, letting you know that it is time to adjust to a new way of being. Not always easy to do. Choices and decisions are so difficult sometimes. Hard when you have a partner for some reasons because you are limited a bit by their needs as well. Hard also when you don’t, because you know you have only yourself to rely on. That gets to be a bit of a conundrum as we age. Which is why good friends matter even more and sadly they sometimes drift away as the years do. You seem to be good at the friend thing, though. I saw how you stuck with your friend in Yarnell. I am sure you have friends who will be as good to you as you have been to others. But. As Bob said, it is time for change. You will figure it out.
Thank you for being one of those friends. I am tired and confused without a clear path ahead. But I’ll keep working at it and come up with some ideas.
Somehow I never thought of actually being old either. Though I did try to wrap my head around “not being” as in dead and just couldn’t imagine it. Your first picture with the sun shining on the farthest range is wonderful. As is that third one with the fabulous clouds. I’m some years older than you and my retirement advice for what to do when you retire is nothing for a while. I’m imagining you are tired and need a rest with no demands or pressures. In that time hopefully something will come to you and if not, why not set out to see some things and parks that aren’t in the hot dry west? I’m your procrastinating sister with lots of excuses and seldom to my advantage as you say. I don’t wanna is possibly my most frequent expression. If I dream while sleeping, I never remember them and am perhaps glad. Your last question left me without an answer. I feel like I’m putting one foot in front of the other and trying to be where it is neither too hot, nor too cold. I was dreaming of being caught up with my comments on your blogs and I think I’ve done it.
Seems like I have spent many winters doing a lot of nothing, and can’t imagine being more lazy than that. Will see. I do think of a summer road trip in parts of the country I haven’t been in a long while. I might make it east before you make it west. Will see.