Living in Wyoming

[injest]

It's OK to have dreams.  It's also OK that some are out of reach and won't come true.  I don't get it when people say "Oh, when you stop dreaming" - and give in to reality I suppose - that you're just "giving up on life".  Honestly, do people realize what they're saying?  I explain to my friends how I need to give up on a dream of mine to go away so I can stay near my mother who is in her last days with cancer and I'm lambasted as a quitter for giving up on my dreams!

Hello!!  Jeez 

So, it's OK to dream about Wyoming but to think logically about moving there, Jeff.  I have multiple fantasies and dreams about moving abroad, etc.  But like you, reality sets in pretty quick.  I have limited job skills, at this time in my life my family needs me near, due to family genetics, health insurance is of extreme importance and despite what others say, I've seen what happens when you don't have these things and that trumps dreams pretty quick.

true, it is called being an adult and caring about your family. I think one thing that people dont' realize is that 'dreaming' doesnt' HAVE to mean packing up your stuff in the trunk and heading out tomorrow.

To me the idea of keeping your dreams alive is keep looking to the future and having goals that can be reached long term and short term....using Del's example, wanting to live abroad...it is not reasonable for most people with real jobs and families to just go 'spur of the moment'...but you can read books, watch travelogues, correspond with people from abroad, and travel. You are still dreaming, still reaching out.

To me that is what is important...the keeping actively looking forward. I dont' think I would feel good about myself at all if I just got up from this computer, got in the car and drove off to be a world traveler...nor do I think it would happen just because I 'decided' to. I have a job where people depend on me. I have animals that I love and need me....I have a husband that cares very deeply for me and who would starve if I wasnt' there to put a plate in front of him  ...

It just isn't in me to be so selfish as to think that I can do just whatever I please, damn the consequences to everyone else.

added to: Where am I supposed to get the money to do all these things I want to do? Reality is that the airline won't let me GO to Europe without some form of payment. I am pretty sure I won't find many places where I can stay free and I sure think sleeping in the alley would ruin the dream thing...

yep, they dont' call it the cold hard facts for nothing...

anyone remember the story of the ant and the grasshopper??

lets revisit this in a couple of years...

(after the credit card bills have really hit)

[brokeplex]

Tell you what, when I think about living in Wyoming, I think about the famous line from Thoreau's Walden, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately."

For "woods," substitute "Wyoming."

Sure, sure, I've only visited the state twice. Am I letting my imagination run away with me? More'n likely. But, so what? A man can dream, can't he?

I'm in love with those mountains, the Big Horns and the Absarokas. It'd be a sweet life, me an' my partner, if we had us a little place in or at the foot of either range, though the Big Horns would do just fine. It wouldn't need to be a big place. I always wanted a cabin like Fess Parker lived in on Daniel Boone.  That would be plenty big enough. A place to live deliberately. Just the basics, him and me.

We'd have us a couple of horses, named for the regional tribes, like Cheyenne, or Shoshone, or Arapaho, maybe a bay and buckskin, or a chestnut would be nice. Maybe even an "applesauce." We'd ride every day the weather wasn't too bad for the horses, because, like the sign over the fireplace at Goff Creek Lodge said, "The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse."

And we'd have us a pickup and an SUV, or maybe a pair of pickups, one with a king cab. 

Yes, sir, when I feel my life is overburdened with responsibility and swamped with things, it sure is nice to think about making a fresh start and getting back to the basics, to living simply, just me and my partner.

So what's the problem?

Well, for starters, there is no partner.    Probably won't be, either. And, at my time of life, I can't imagine taking off like that on my own. I fear isolation. That's what keeps me in the heart of downtown Philadelphia instead of moving out of the city. My church is around the corner. My gym is three blocks away. After twenty years in a community I have only to stop into any of our bars and I always run into someone I know to exchange a few words, have some human contact. I have a network here.

I also have a widowed, elderly father only an hour and a half travel west of here--and no siblings. Just after my mother died, when he was feeling sorry for himself, he blurted out that he and my mother should have given me a brother or sister somehow, so it wouldn't now all fall on me. Well, Pop, you should have thought of that 40 years ago.    Now, what kind of a man would I be to abandon him to pursue my own dreams out West? 

There is also the question of earning a living. A man's first responsibility is to support himself. I have a limited set of marketable skills, and a good job here. Just what the heck would I do for a living in Ten Sleep, Wyoming?  Open a bar, maybe? Maybe call it the Silver Spur? I have some limited amateur experience as a bar tender, and I imagine folks drink pretty simple out there--no fancy-ass cocktails with pink paper umbrellas in the Ten Sleep Saloon, I expect.    Although the bartender at the Mint, in Sheridan, did know how to make a Liquid Marijuana. ...   

But, I don't know the first thing about running a business. ... 

But if the right Cowboy wanted me to move to Wyoming to be with him, would I do it?

What do you think?

Hell, yes, I'd do it! I'd trust in God and redline it all the way, wouldn't be able to get there fast enough. ...

A man can dream, can't he?   

go for your dreams Jeff! If your dream is to live out in the Rocky Mountain west, then take a leap of faith and paths can open for you. But the first step is the convincing leap of faith because only then you are able to see possibilities that you could not see before.

[Jeff Wrangler]

It's OK to have dreams.  It's also OK that some are out of reach and won't come true.  I don't get it when people say "Oh, when you stop dreaming" - and give in to reality I suppose - that you're just "giving up on life".  Honestly, do people realize what they're saying?  I explain to my friends how I need to give up on a dream of mine to go away so I can stay near my mother who is in her last days with cancer and I'm lambasted as a quitter for giving up on my dreams!

Hello!!  Jeez 

So, it's OK to dream about Wyoming but to think logically about moving there, Jeff.  I have multiple fantasies and dreams about moving abroad, etc.  But like you, reality sets in pretty quick.  I have limited job skills, at this time in my life my family needs me near, due to family genetics, health insurance is of extreme importance and despite what others say, I've seen what happens when you don't have these things and that trumps dreams pretty quick.

It sure does. 

And I'm very sorry to hear about your mother. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

go for your dreams Jeff! If your dream is to live out in the Rocky Mountain west, then take a leap of faith and paths can open for you. But the first step is the convincing leap of faith because only then you are able to see possibilities that you could not see before.

Friend, take another look at that section of the essay that starts with, "So what's the problem?"

Unless you got you an extra cowboy layin' around somewhere that you aren't doin' anything with who wants a partner. ...   

[brokeplex]

Friend, take another look at that section of the essay that starts with, "So what's the problem?"

Unless you got you an extra cowboy layin' around somewhere that you aren't doin' anything with who wants a partner. ...   

sure I read that, and that is the start, looking for that cowboy! I wasn't trying to live your life for you, but I think that you wouldn't have shared your dream if you thought that it was entirely impossible. I am just encouraging you to never give up, keep your eyes on that dream. but in any case, be happy.

[Monika]

regarding dreams...I have always seperated between dreams and goals. Dreams can be about me wanting to climb Mount Everest or whatever - stuff that I really don´t want enough to try to make it happen but that I still like to daydream about. Goals on the other hand are things that I really want to do and feel strongly enough to fight for. So for me dreams are important, but not necesserily things I want to come true, but goals are things I really want to happen and things that are possible.

[Jeff Wrangler]

sure I read that, and that is the start, looking for that cowboy!

"Start looking"? Jesus H., man, what do you think I've been doing for the past eight years or so? 

[injest]

"Start looking"? Jesus H., man, what do you think I've been doing for the past eight years or so? 

um...knitting? scuba diving? Rock climbing? flying experimental airplanes? Searching for a cure for cancer?

 

[Jeff Wrangler]

um...knitting? scuba diving? Rock climbing? flying experimental airplanes? Searching for a cure for cancer?

 

How about thinking up nasty things to say about Texas?         

[brokeplex]

"Start looking"? Jesus H., man, what do you think I've been doing for the past eight years or so? 

best of luck to you! you know, we do have a surplus of cowboys here in "Cowntown" aka Ft Worth. There's a rodeo somewhere in the area about every two weeks all year long.  search around these parts and maybe you can find a way to say great things about Texas!