So when all your dreams come true, who do you want standing next to you? Way back at the beginning of this blog and this year, I asked myself that question and did it periodically over the year. Basically I took it to mean that when you are at your happiest or when you go through the great moments of your life, who is going to the person you want to share it with?
When I got back home, people started asking me how the trip was. They wanted to know what I saw and if I did anything exciting. As I played the last two weeks over in my head I thought of all the amazing things I did. I thought about learning to use a nail gun to attach two by fours to the side of a house that someone would eventually live in. I remembered putting up titles on the overhang of the roof and how it was much more difficult than I thought it would be. I contemplated the times when the families came and walked through the rooms of their soon to be new homes that I helped paint. Conversations over dinner, an impromptu talent show, daily meetings, and late night hotel room hang out sessions all ran through my head. So when people asked me if I did anything exciting, I said I hiked a volcano.
I know that might not make sense but it became pretty clear to me that when I got back, what I had lived through was an incredible experience that meant so much to me but to the rest of my world, it was just another trip I had taken. They couldn’t feel the sense of pride that I had when I saw the faces of the people who would move into the houses I worked on or the bond I had with the 21 other people who took this adventure with me. I didn’t play with any exotic animals or snowboard on the world famous mountains in New Zealand. My pictures are of half built houses and unfamiliar faces rather than standing in front of the country’s iconic monuments. What I found exciting on this trip just couldn’t be translated to those around me so that left me with the volcano.
Regardless of if people can understand what you go through or not, I know that when the great moments of my life happen, that I will always have amazing people standing beside me. It is their support that keeps me focused and drives me to achieve the things I want and I’m so thankful for that. Whether it’s pursuing a degree, running a race or making a job change, people do all kinds of things that don’t always make sense to an outsider but ultimately we support them in the quest to achieve their goals. So when all my dreams come true, I hope that the same people who asked me about my trip will be there to inquire about those moments too. I might not always be able to translate the greatness or impact those moments had on my life but it’s not about them understanding, it’s about them being there.
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