Do "I Have a Dream" (?)

I planned on writing about today’s  great bike trip, but driving home I heard this NPR piece about a 1999 documentary called How’sYour News? The filmmakers made a cross country trip from Maine to California with five adults with disabilities.  Along the way, the disabled adults interviewed people on the street, and the film makers filmed it.

What made me change my mind about the biking idea was that one of the interviewers (Robert Bird) is questioning a motorcycle rider somewhere in California.  He asks the guy if he has a dream, and the guy really doesn’t have one.  Robert says he had the dream to go to California.  At that moment, I wondered what I could say if Robert asked me.  Do I have a dream?

I thought this blog would chronicle my experience with making a big change in my life – no job after 47 years of work (started at 15 in my dad’s grocery store).  But honestly, I don’t really have a “dream.”  As you read “dream” picture me making the quotation marks with my fingers.  That’s what I mean.  I don’t have a [fingers} dream {fingers].    Not working isn’t really some thing, is it?  It is the absence of something --- employment.

I’ve never been one of those people who had their five year plans, or knew what they wanted to do with their lives as soon as they popped out of the womb. My life sort of meandered, but in a good way.  But do I have a dream?  I hate to admit it, but I don’t think so, and I don’t think I will.   But perhaps that’s okay.  I got here didn’t I?  Maybe this became such a big question for me today because of the stories this week of the Olympic athletes who “knew at 13 that she wanted to be a gymnast, so moved away from her family to work work work.”  These guys all have had dreams and look where they are.

Can I just be happy with being me, meandering through retirement without training for a century bike ride, inventing some shoe accessory and making millions, or learning to play the piano?  I hope so, because that’s probably what's going to happen and that's what this blog is all about.

I am going to stop procrastinating this week and come up with my list of 100 things I want to do until “my retirement ends,” as my financial planner likes to say.  So keep tuned in.  I probably won’t come up with all 100 this week, but will unveil at least a few.  Then my dream will be to try them and let you know how it worked out.  Please don't have high Olympic expectations for me.  I don't have that much energy left.