Post Cards from Someday

 

 

When I first saw the title of Andrea Olson’s guest post I had my doubts. I thought, “Doesn’t she know how I feel about someday?” But then I read the post and realized she does know and she’s got a unique spin on it that she shares in today’s guest post. 

When I was a teenager, I read a work of fiction re-imagining Charles Darwin’s journey to the Galapagos Islands. I tumbled so deeply into the story that I felt I was there; observing the wildlife, feeling the sweat run down my back under the heat of the equatorial sun, making notes in a battered leather notebook.

Upon finishing the book, I said to my mom, “Someday, I’m going to go to the Galapagos Islands.” She merely nodded and continued folding the laundry.

Fast-forward some twenty years. I’m standing before a large cardboard box that holds the contents of my career as a lawyer. Random papers. Chewed up pencils. A plaque that describes my many wonderful attributes as the employee of the month. A half-eaten Snickers bar.

I have just quit my job. After many fits and starts, I’ve finally admitted to myself that I do not want to practice law. I simply don’t like it and I’m not doing it again. Nope. Never.

Despite my resolve never to practice law again, I have no idea what I’m going to do next. Even more frightening, I have no idea what I want to do next. None what-so-ever.

That is when someday sweeps in to save me.

An oversized post card arrives in the mail describing a trip to the Galapagos Islands, leaving in two weeks.

I’ve never heard of the organization offering the trip and I have no idea how I got on their mailing list but it seems like an answer to an unspoken prayer.

I dig out my passport and am delighted to find that it hasn’t expired. I check my bank account – there’s just enough in there to cover the costs of the trip. With shaking fingers, I dial the number on the post card and ask if there’s still room for one more.

And, before I know it, I’m on a plane heading out to meet blue-footed boobies and giant tortoises, following Darwin’s long-imagined footsteps.

After ten days of bobbing in the ocean and wandering for miles through rocky terrain peeping at iguanas, I realize something:  in the steady crush of getting an education, landing the right jobs, and working hard to do the right things, I have totally lost sight of myself.

What I like. What matters to me. What interests me. What I might enjoy.

I have forgotten all of my somedays. I have forgotten what is possible.

Because that’s what somedays are – they are the calls to what is possible for us and our lives.

That post card that sent me to the Galapagos Islands?

It didn’t just send me on a trip. It put me on a whole new path.

Once I got back, I started excavating more somedays from my past – someday I’d like to try yoga, buy rental property, visit Hungary, and make my own dress pattern. I could hardly contain myself. It was like taking the cap off of a shaken bottle of soda; everything came bubbling out.

I started noticing new somedays as they arrived and kept track of them all. I discovered they painted the most amazing picture of who I was and who I might yet be. Even better, when I stepped up to meet them and acted on them even in the smallest ways – by buying a book or enrolling in a class, my life became richer at every turn.

I learned that somedays really do matter. They lead us to ourselves – infallibly – even if we have forgotten the way.

Watch for postcards from someday.

You just might find yourself on the trip of a lifetime.

If someday sent a postcard to you, what would be on it?

 

Andrea Olson is the creator of amutltitudeofthings.com a community of individuals dedicated to embracing their possibilities and crafting lives they love. Andrea recently launched Possible to Probable where she works with individuals as a personal dream manager, drawing on her background in law and a multitude of things in between.