Learning to dream big again

Some people have big dreams. A dream that they will risk everything for. One that propels them forward against all challenges and gives their every action a meaning. Recently, after watching a couple of documentary films, I became very curious about people who want to climb Mount Everest. Why do some people have such an extreme desire to accomplish a goal which has such a high risk of death?

I love mountain adventures, but I prefer mountains with a much lower risk factor.

These questions spurred questions about my own dreams, or as I quickly realized, my lack of dreams. When did I stop dreaming? When did I stop thinking about my future?

For a many years, Huntington’s Disease dominated my thoughts of the future. First, obligations of caretaking, followed by my own possible future with the disease. I never actually thought much about a future without the disease. Before getting a predictive test, I spent weeks thinking of, and planning for a future with the gene. How we would raise a family and what I wanted for my kids. We even talked about buying a summer home in France. We never thought about our plan for the future if I did not have the gene.

After we found out that I did not have the Huntington’s Disease gene, we were euphoric. I happily told my sons that they would not be at risk for Huntington’s Disease. We had Noah. Life carried on. We forgot about the idea of a summer home in France, and we focused on our family and careers.  

I realized that I should take better care of my teeth as I would need them longer than anticipated, and I better put more money into my retirement savings for the same reason. But… I forgot to think about what kinds of big things I might want to do in my future.

I think that this is not a problem that is unique to my situation. Maybe it is part of what drives a mid-life crisis, or the need to redefine life after fifty. We spend a lot of time when we are young, thinking about what we want in our futures, our dreams, and goals. Often though, those dreams and goals are for mid-life. They revolve around family choices, careers, a home, and when to retire. What happens when we achieve everything and have no goals to work towards?

When I listened to people in the Everest documentaries, I thought, I am too old for something like that. It is too late for me to make a goal like that. I have heard others say similar things. I am getting too old. Then I read about Liliya Ianovskaia in a CBC article:

‘I’ve been able to dream big’: 62-year-old Canadian becomes oldest woman to summit K2 in Pakistan by Sara Jabakhanji

At age 50 she made a list of goals to accomplish in a year. She not only ran her first marathon that year, but she started alpine climbing. Last year, at the age of 62, she summited three of the world’s highest mountains including Mount Everest.

Ok I thought, I am not too old for something like that. I need a big goal. Something big to work towards. I need to dream big.

Inspired by the mountaineers whose stories I had been watching, and by my own strength and perseverance in mountain adventures I have done over previous years, I decided I wanted my big goal to be a big mountain adventure. We (Nico and I) started brainstorming. Nico gave me a few ideas, but I told him I wanted a bigger goal. One that we would need to work for several years to achieve and that would take several weeks to accomplish. He told me he had always wanted to climb Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest peak in South America, and suggested we do that one. I was sold. Our big dream started to take shape.

I started running, and we started planning interim mountain adventures. We have started adding other mountain and trekking adventures to the list of favorites. As the goal continues to take shape, I am thinking about a theme – maybe a mountain adventure on each continent or something like that. A theme is fun.

I am learning to dream big again and the future is looking pretty exciting.