Dreams Interrupted ~ guest post by jake atkins

Last week, Nate Blevins talked about moving to LA with his wife to help her chase her dreams. Today, Jake Atkins shares his story about packing up and switching coasts for his wife.  Jake and his wife are two of my favorite people on the face of this earth. He's been my best friend since my first year of college. I don't know many people that are more compassionate, understanding, creative, and hopeful than he is.

I know you'll love him.

***

When I was younger, I had plenty of dreams for my life. I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to play ice hockey. I wanted to see a great white shark in the wild. While also being in the water myself. Preferably with a cage between us.

After college, I married an amazing girl who wanted to become a naturopathic doctor. This meant packing everything up in Pennsylvania and relocating to Seattle. One of the best experiences of my life was our road trip we took across the country while towing a six-foot U-Haul of all our stuff. Having never been west of Ohio, it was quite an adventure.

But after the first year's dust had settled, it began to sink in that I was now committed to my wife's dream. This wasn't a bad thing, just something I noticed. I needed to focus on getting a real job to support us, and even more so after our two girls were born. Soon after that we bought a house.

It was official: I was a grown-up with responsibilities.

Wake up, catch the bus to work, play with the kids for 30 minutes before bedtime, then clean the house and reset everything so that we could do it all over again the next day. A good amount of conversations with my wife had to happen over Google Hangouts (if you have kids, you understand).

Through this mess called modern life, it's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. The big dreams I once had for myself now seem like a vapor, a ghosting of something once so valued. I know they're still there in the background, but not so present anymore. At least not demanding my attention as much as the daily routine, job, bills, and chores.

I've come to find there are stages in life where my dreams need to be bigger than me. They need to outlast me. They need to stretch and push things to the side, making room for others.

Watching my wife graduate last year was as much a win for me as it was for her. I desire for my girls to live long, whole, happy, and meaningful lives, so pouring into their little hearts as they grow is simply my dreams being fulfilled daily. Their dreams are my dreams now, too, and that's a humbling and beautiful thing to share.

Don't get me wrong, I still have little tastes of my old dreams here and there. I regularly play in a band at church.  I recently laced up the ice skates to pull my oldest daughter around the rink. But for now, nothing makes me happier than dreaming big with those most close to me.

***

Jake Atkins is a web developer in Seattle. When not working on the next awesome website, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two girls.

Once in a Lifetime ~ guest post by nate blevins

I'm excited to continue the series of guest posts on dreams with one from my good friend, Nate Blevins. He's married to Ashley, who also wrote a guest post here last fall about moving to Los Angeles.

I asked Nate to share about what it was like to support his wife in her dream to move to Los Angeles and write. Another post is coming from my friend Jake next week from the same perspective. Both do a great job of addressing this question: What about the people supporting the dreams of their family?

While I've known them for a couple of years, Nate and Ashley in the last six months have introduced me to El Limon in Conshohocken and the movie Happythankyoumoreplease, supported me through rough waters, and re-ignited my passion for my dreams. I'm really grateful for these friends. They are amazing people, and I hope you enjoy this post from Nate.

***

There is a song that came out 33 years ago that still tends to strike a chord deep within me when I hear it. I’m sure you’ve heard it before and never really paid much mind to it. It’s by the band Talking Heads and it’s called Once In A Lifetime. In a nutshell, the song is about how life will continually creep up on you and catch you off guard. And that it’s OK.

16 months ago, I was living in Pennsylvania with my wife, Ashley. I had been with the same company for close to 7 years, and I was ready for a change. I had been given an opportunity with a company that I finally felt like I was being valued at. So excited for the new beginnings, I wrote a post about it.

I spent less than two months with the company, and I was spent. The job was fine, and the potential to grow with a hefty salary was definitely present. Despite the benefits, I ended up not connecting with my peers on a work and moral level. To me, it was devastating. I resigned on a Tuesday in November of 2012. With hope, and potential, I maneuvered to get my old job back. That fell apart, and I quickly realized I was unemployed for the first time.

“Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.” Guys, Ms. Frizzle is always right.

When Ashley asked me about moving to LA to support her dreams of being a writer, the decision was always easy. She was always there to support me. When I left my job for a better opportunity, she supported me. When I left that job because I was unhappy, she supported me. While I searched 2 months for a job, she supported me. When we didn’t have money for gifts because I wasn’t working during Christmas, she wasn’t upset. She held us together during that time, and she was the rock.

Last January, I was able to find a new job, and get this, the salary was better than the bad job I had quit. The work was more up my alley, and I knew I had the option to transfer with this company. For months, LA had been a discussion. When you run out of money, have no job, and have no idea what is going on, a discussion like that can turn into a dream. While at work my first week, I got this stirring in me. I thought, This is crazy, but it’s right. I came home, walked through the door, and the first thing I said was, “Let’s move to LA by the end of this year.” We made a goal to get there by the first week of October. And WE did it.

Looking back at the influences in our life, I look to our mentors Buddy and Chelle. They were our pastors in high school, then through college, and during the first years of our marriage. They have been an unwavering example of how to support one another. Be it Buddy going back to college, or Chelle taking a principal position, or Buddy launching a new church. In the best of times and the worst of times, they will always support each other and be each others biggest fan.

Ashley and I have a story that’s uncommon today. We are only 26 and have been together for 40% of our short lives. We celebrated our 10 years being a couple, and 5 years of being man and wife this past summer. We are having the time of our lives, and living it to the fullest. I feel as if a lot of people think, “Nate is so great, moving all the way out there to help her pursue her dreams.” In reality, her dreams are my dreams. Her success is my success. Her happiness is my happiness. When you look at it that way, the once-in-a-lifetime decision was easy to make.

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack

You may find yourself living in another part of the world

You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife

You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

***

When not storming a castle or fighting a dragon for his wife Ashley, Nate can be found exploring Civil War battlefields or browsing tech blogs. He works in the construction industry, and wishes dearly Ron Swanson was his boss. He can also make a killer grilled cheese. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram, @nateblevins.

Maybe, But...

Maybe I'm a little naive. Maybe I expect too much of life.

Maybe I don't know how it really works.

Maybe my head's been in the clouds too long.

Maybe I've read one too many John Muir quotes.

Maybe I've watched one too many Meg Ryan movies.

Maybe I believe Jesus came so we could live life to its fullest.

Maybe I'll find desert on the other side of this mountain.

Maybe I've tried to capture and collect snow flakes.

Maybe I've chased after the wind all these years.

Maybe I'll have my heart shattered to pieces.

Maybe I'll add more scars to my collection.

Maybe I'll be disappointed yet again.

Maybe this is all complete nonsense.

Maybe that's all true, but...

I've spent too much time on auto-pilot.

I've spent too much time playing it safe.

I've spent too much time being mediocre.

I've spent too much time longing and wanting.

I've spent too much time worrying and stressing out.

I've spent too much time watching other people live life.

I've spent too much time wondering what it'd be like to live mine.

I've spent too much time caring about what other people think.

I've spent too much time living someone else's dream for me.

I've spent too much time looking back instead of forward.

I've spent too much time looking down instead of up.

I've spent too much time believing I'm not worth it.

I've spent too much time believing I can't do it.

I've spent too much time protecting myself.

I've spent too much time.

You'll forgive me, then, while I act the fool and believe that my dreams are within reach, that love can be everything I hoped it could be, that life is an adventure waiting for us to throw ourselves into headfirst and without reservation, that "the world is ours if we would only let it be."

Maybe I'm a fool, but...

Maybe I'm not.

For The Hopeless Snow Romantics

Here's a recreation of the stream-of-consciousness that seven-year-old me would have had when asked about snow:

SNOW!! My favorite! No school! Where are my gloves? We're going to go sledding! No. We're going to make snow tunnels! No. We're going to make an igloo. We're going to make tunnels to an igloo. I like eating snow. Did you know that you can pretend big icicles are ice bazookas and you can kill abodibble snowmen with it?! Is it going to snow? IS IT GOING TO SNOW??

Many of my best memories as a kid were in the snow. I can still remember how excited I got when a blizzard would roll through. I remember the hours on end we'd spend outside building forts, building ramps, extending our sledding route deep into the woods to build maximum speed. When we got too cold, we'd come inside, throw our clothes in the dryer, make some hot chocolate, play Nintendo, and then go right back to work.

Loved the snow.

My dad, though, hated it. He hated the shoveling, the cold, everything associated with it. He dreamed of warmer weather, of Florida, of lush, green lawns untainted by the filthy white stuff. My dad would tell me things like, "Once you grow up, you won't love the snow anymore."

That seemed like a ridiculous statement to me. There was no way I couldn't love snow. I mean...it was snow--the only form of precipitation that comes down as silken happiness.

Yet, as the years have gone by, a part of me has waited, has dreaded the inevitable day when I would become a real grown up, go to work, pay my bills, cook my meals, and hate snow. I'm twenty-eight years old, though, and I have to say:

I still love the freakin' snow.

I love the calm, quiet way a snow storm rolls in. No gusting wind, no pelting the roof or window--just the soft, light falling of feathers.

I love walking outside early the morning after it snows and seeing everything blanketed with a perfect layer of white, and listening to the strange silence that comes with all the neighbors sleeping in and barricading themselves from the cold.

I love the moment that snow first starts to fall--there's nothing closer to the magic of a fairy tale or some epic story than snow dancing down from the clouds.

And get this...I even love the work and inconvenience that comes with it. I love the sweat of shoveling my way out of the driveway. I love when the wind blows snow back in my face as I'm clearing off the car. I love slipping and sliding around and almost losing my balance (almost, because I never actually do...it's an Asian balance thing) on some ice on the sidewalk. I love getting snow in my shoes when I'm trudging through six inches of snow in my Chucks. I love the delays. I love the traffic. I love losing traction with my car as I drive.

I...maybe misspoke a bit there. It's not that I love those typical drawbacks of snow (though last night, I lost control of my car, and by my laughing and "WOOOOOOO"s, it was hard to tell if I loved it or not). It's that I genuinely love snow so much, I understand what comes with it, and I accept all of it because snow is so worth it to me.

Maybe you just don't love snow that much. Or at all. I get why you'd hate it, then--the drawbacks are too much. Snow's not worth the delays and inconvenience, the scraping and shoveling, the slush and salt.

But for those of us who are crazy enough, the hassle of snow will never outweigh the value of snow itself. We love it that much.

We can all understand this, because we all have something in our lives we care about that much, that moves us enough to say, "To hell with the cons; it's worth it."

There are so many times I'm tempted to think I'm being naive about different aspects of life, that I've become too idealistic, too romantic. Snow, believe it or not, has shown me I'm not wrong. I can still be wide-eyed when it comes to snow. I can still look forward to it with anticipation. I can still smile, throw my head back, and let the flakes fall on my face. I can still hum the tune of "Let It Snow" even though Christmas is gone. I can still write about it like I'm high on ecstasy, and I can do all of this without feeling guilty for being a hack because I've put in the gritty, unromantic work that comes with the snow.

I can do that because I worked for a year shoveling the snow off the sidewalks and driveway of a huge estate after multiple blizzards. I can do that because it took me three hours to drive home a few weeks ago when it would normally take me thirty minutes. I can do that because I was outside for an hour this morning simultaneously sweating and freezing as I shoveled and cleared off cars. And I'm still smiling. I still love the snow.

I get the crappy part. I do. And I still love it. So let me be that guy that is annoyingly in love with snow, okay?

Be Careful What You Pray For

I'm no expert on prayer. Sometimes, my prayer looks like a formal process: Bible in front of me, my head bowed, eyes closed. I have a structure, an order I follow. Occasionally, I pray the Lord's prayer with slight modifications.

Sometimes, it looks like the pages of a child's coloring book--colors outside the lines, erratic strokes, mismatched colors. A whisper before I make a phone call. A request for forgiveness after I judge someone for liking Jason Statham movies. An exasperated "God, please!" when I'm watching the Steelers play. (Being totally serious.)

I know that sometimes God waits to answer my prayers.

I know that sometimes God says no. Like how he has said no to my numerous requests to win the lottery despite my insistence that I'll be responsible. Then again, maybe it's a "Let's wait and see." Fingers crossed.

For all the waiting and all the no's I seem to get, I also know this: sometimes God gives us exactly what we ask for.

Several years ago, I wrote down a prayer in my journal. I was a sophomore in college, and I was all excitement and idealism and bravado and naiveté. Here's what I wrote down:

God, take me through the fire.

At that time, I believed that nothing worth having in life would come easy, so in order to have the best life possible, I wanted God to shake me up and make it hard. I resonated with what John F. Kennedy said decades ago: "Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men." That made sense to me. The best things in life shouldn't come easy. So I prayed for refinement by fire.

What an idiot.

And I wrote it down, thereby providing documented evidence of my silly prayer. I couldn't even take it back or claim, "I never said that!" (Because sometimes God falls for that, right?)

Let me be clear. I wasn't an idiot for believing that life shouldn't be easy. I was an idiot because God sometimes grants us exactly what we pray for. And in this case, he did.

When the fire came, it stayed.

It stayed almost every single day for the last eight years.

In the midst of that fire, it's been easy to forget that I asked for this.

I have a friend who told me a similar story. She had prayed months ago that God would remove someone from her life if it wasn't right, if there was something better, because she didn't think she could do it herself. Later, when that person left, she was devastated. In the aftermath, in the midst of brokenness and questions, her prayer came back to her.

She remembered that she had asked for this--not so much the pain, but the "something better." The beauty and power of God's grace is that it sometimes does something for us we wouldn't have had the courage to do ourselves.

That prayer I wrote down eight years ago has become both a face-palm inducer (Why did you ask for this, moron? Pray for lots of money and beach houses from now on!) and a source of quiet hope. Hope that God is doing something. That my suffering isn't senseless. That ultimately, I need that fire.

Our U.S. Forest Service has been managing the tension of fire for years. Every year, wildfires break out in forests all over the country. While most of us watch these fires on our TV screens with fear and concern, the prevailing philosophy experts and scientists have adopted says to let the fires run their course. While we should do our best to protect homes and valuable infrastructures, the fires ultimately are good for the landscapes they seem to be ravaging.

A short-sighted perspective sees only scorched earth, smoldering ash where trees and green grass used to grow. Land that has been burned by fire won't see significant regrowth for decades. Anyone with a mind to develop buildings in or around the affected area faces significant challenges.

A longer, more patient view, though, helps one understand that fire makes forests healthier and more resilient. According to the 1995 Wildland Fire Policy, forest fire is a "critical natural process." After a fire initially moves through and burns dry brush and excess timber, that forest, left with its strong trees, then provides less fuel and thereby less destruction when subsequent fires move through again.

When I prayed for fire as a headstrong, naive nineteen-year-old undergrad student, I had no idea what I was asking for. I was an unsuspecting, overgrown forest full of pride and immaturity.

Dry as dust.

Ripe for fire.

My vices in need of being burned into a coat of ash.

And that fire came. With smoke all around me, I had the hardest time finding hope. Seeing a plan. But as the fire has moved through the different parts of my life and my heart, as the haze has thinned, as the ground has begun to cool, I see more and more the beautiful, mysterious, painful grace that took my silly prayer and used it to do more in my life than I knew I was requesting.

So be careful when you pray. You might just get what you ask for. And more.