Up, Up, and Away

A few weeks ago on ABC Nightly News there was a segment about how older people, sometimes even people who have reached retiring age, are completely switching careers or are choosing to take up hobbies that they had always wanted to pick up and never did. Factors like being too busy, children, finances, were just some of the reasons that they never “followed their dreams”. I so admire people who reach 50, 60, and switch it up because they aren’t happy doing what they are doing anymore. I hope that I always have a hunger for new things. I think that we all accept that giving up on dreams and choosing the practical is sometimes just a part of becoming an adult, and it is, definitely. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t find either new dreams, or something that makes us just as happy. And who says that we have to give up on our dreams if they are feasible with heart and hard work? As long as you are not ridiculous, like wanting to play for the Yankees and you’re 45 and weigh 500 lbs—dreams should be followed. There’s a line in “Rudy”, a movie that makes me cry no matter how many times I watch it, the friend tells Rudy that “Dreams make life tolerable.”


When you become a parent, you develop many abilities. One is to watch and even enjoy watching juvenile shows and movies. I watch “Barney”, “Sesame Street”, and Disney movies over and over and over and over again. I have seen “Toy Story 3”, or as Dylan calls it “Fwee Fwee Fwee”, about 56 times. And when I watch Barney, I can promise you that I am smiling and feeling joy because Carson loves it, and yet I am thinking “Why has it proved to be an impossible feat to avoid this obnoxious purple Dinosaur, and why do I always end up singing the songs all day?” I have tried to avoid that creature for 10 years and all of my kids have loved him; it doesn’t matter how hard I have tried to keep him out of their lives. The cool thing is that eventually you get even. Now when Logan and Lindsey shudder at the sound of Barney’s odd Hillbilly voice, I remind them that they LOVED him. They love that. Anyway, one of the movies that I have grown accustom to watching multiple times a day is “Up”. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. I could watch this movie 300 times with my kids and never get sick of it. It’s about an old man who promised his wife he’d take her to Paradise Falls in South America. They met when they were little kids, got married, and life kept getting in the way of their dream of traveling to the Falls. When she dies and he is about to be picked up by a retirement home, he straps thousands of balloons to the house and takes off, setting sail for Paradise Falls. This movie is about making promises and keeping them, never giving up on dreams, and making new friends when life seems hopeless and lonely. A little boy just happens to be on the porch when the house takes flight, and so the old man and the kid have an adventure together in South America. There are a couple of lines that I always laugh about. The old man says “Now we’re going to get the Falls swiftly and quietly with no rap music or flash dancing!” And then he says to the little boy, when the little boy doesn’t know how to build a tent “Aren’t you Super-Wilderness Boy with the GPM’s and the badges?” (Meaning that he is a boy-scout with a GPS device.) It is thoroughly entertaining, and it’s a story that I wish I had written. When you are a writer and you think “I wish I had thought of that,” you know it’s good.

What did you want to be or do when you were a kid? Think about it today and remember, you’re never too old to be happy.

Here’s the Word of the Day:

nervure \NUR-vyoor\, noun:
A vein, as of a leaf or the wing of an insect.