When I was a poor VISTA in Utah, I found a bumper sticker that said "Do your dream". I love that and find it very empowering. Taking some responsibility for your life with all the good and bad choices that have been made, makes it all about intention.
I would like to think I live a life of good intentions. I have screwed up royally on more occassions than you can count, but like riding a horse, I lick my wounds and come back with a bounce. And scars.
I rode in the DC AIDS ride in 1999. That was a turning point for me, and the beginning of doing my dream. Raleigh NC to DC, 375 miles in 4 days. Two of those days were a century (100 miles). My personal best was 75 miles a day. The great thing about that experience was that I set out to do something, and maybe didn't do as well as a lot of people, but I completed the ride. Kicked my ass but I finished. The lessons I gained from that experience are priceless, with the most important lesson being I can do whatever I set my mind to. My mantra during that ride was "the road ahead, the power within".
After the Ride, I began to re-evaluate my life. I was turning 40 and this was my mid-life crisis. I didn't go out and buy a Porsche, I left my life and started over again as a VISTA in bet you can't find it on a map, Blanding Utah. The day I had everything I owned in front of my house for a yard sale was the scariest day of my life. Well, one of the scariest days. My girlfriend came to help out and I hardly recognized her. She said I looked like a deer in the headlights. I made enough money to make the trip with my german shepard, Kia, to middle of nowhere Utah so I guess it's true that one persons' stuff is another persons' treasure.
Everyone thought I should carry a gun for my trip across the country. I don't like guns and at the time had never come close to one. I just replied Look at this dog! Who is going to mess with me with this german shepard in the shotgun seat? Kia is one of my life's tragedies. I had no business owning a german shepard. She came from a backyard breeder and was so anxious that she was fierce. I never had her off the lead around other people. No one was going to mess with me with that dog on the end of a lead.
In Utah I had a little bit of a house with a lot of space around it. One day I was sitting in a plastic chair, reading, with Kia on the end of the lead attached to the chair. I got up to get a glass of water, and heard the chair move. A very kind Morman lady had come by to visit, and Kia bit her. For no reason at all. I was horrified. She went to the doctor, he had to report it and the cops came by for a visit. They gave me two options: either I get her out of town, or they were going to shoot her. I couldn't in good conscious give her to someone else because I knew it would happen again. So I took her to the vet, who was really a big animal vet, and had her put down. My VISTA friends were amazing to me throughout the whole ordeal.
The absolute worst part was my boy was coming to visit and I had to tell him what happened to Kia. Two of my VISTA friends went with me to pick him up at the airport and about 5 minutes into the ride back to Blanding, he asks about Kia. I pulled off the road, took him for a walk, and told him what had happened. Three days later we got Georgie the Wonderdog.
After living under the poverty level for 2 years, I needed to find a sustainable job. Utah was out of the question, so I went to New Mexico where I talked my way into a Main Street position. I had never heard of the Main Street program before I applied for the job. I talked my way into it, and once again, was doing my dream. I was running a program that meant something to a community and I was living and working near the Navajo Reservation. I was still feeling connected.
Now that I have made my way to Montana, it occurred to me that when I was younger, I wanted to go to MSU and live in Montana. I am still doing my dream only this time, my bumper sticker says "well behaved women rarely make history". Try using that as an example when asked "What made me think I knew what I was doing?" to a group of Shriners, all over the age of 70 and 4th generation Montanan's. I was there to present the City's streetscape program to them. That was a tough room.
Thanks for reading!
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