I was watching a show last night when my mind began to wander to groceries and bills. I’m 42 years old. I’ve been working all my life and have managed to scrape by. I have stood in line at the grocery store and felt a wave of gratitude wash over me as I realized how lucky I was to buy food and provide for my wife and daughter. These moments are not lost on me.

But the specter of funds has haunted every decision, from food to clothing to the home repairs we can’t make, always running on empty. And that ever-present worry inhibits what should be the full experience of life. Yes, we can find a way to make it to the fair, but I’m sorry, we can’t get cotton candy this time. Maybe next year. And then she’s older and doesn’t want to go, and all these chances have been lost forever. I have lost so many chances.

The show continued and I recognized the characters’ story arcs and realized that my life would not make a good show. There is no arc. Every episode is a familiar day with familiar worries. I don’t want that. I never wanted that.

And after all this time I finally decided I don’t want to be that person anymore. I never knew I could make that decision. I was raised to believe that life is working hard to just scrape by, so that’s what my life became. I didn’t know I could write future storylines, change this character’s journey.

Now I want to know what it actually feels like to live without that cloud over everything. I want my family to be able to experience more life. I want to take them out to a sit-down restaurant a couple times a month. I want to patronize the arts and local businesses. I want us to experience a vacation for the first time. If prompted to keep dreaming bigger and bigger, I might eventually use the word “passports”.

This fantasy is beyond the scope of anything I’ve recognized as a want in my life. I never learned to dream beyond mere survival. All of these desires have been repressed my whole life, buried in the exhaustion between working and doing things for others. But now the notion of a wildly different existence has taken root.

I was moved to dream (and create this website) by a gift from someone I didn’t know, who gained nothing material in return. It was humbling and moved me to tears. I’m still learning how to feel worthy of accepting what is given selflessly. To I believe in the kindness of strangers because I know I’m not alone.

I don’t want to be wealthy. I don’t want to share pictures and videos of my life on the internet.

There won’t be any social media links or ads.

There’s no punchline or ironic twist.

This is it. This is my realization.