Follow You Anywhere

 There was a time I avoided talking with my husband. Like seriously avoided.

Let me explain.

For several years, I did everything I could to not be caught off guard with the opportunity to talk deeply and uninterrupted with Brandon. Not about the day-to-day stuff, that was fine. It was the quiet talk of sharing from our hearts that I tried desperately to avoid. Now, you have to know, I love Brandon, with all my heart, but I did not want to talk with him. See, I knew we were both unhappy and I knew if we were given the chance to talk, he was going to tell me exactly what he wanted. And I was fearful that what he wanted just wasn’t possible—I believed the future he dreamed of us living didn’t even exist.

This was at a time it seemed we had achieved everything we could in life. He had a good job, I was a stay-at-home mom, all of the kids were in school and involved in things, and the youngest was still home with me. We had a few cars, we were putting in a pool, we took summer vacations, we went to church every Sunday. We lived in a good neighborhood and our kids were doing well in school. It all looked good on paper but we weren’t happy. We weren’t happy and we knew it.

I rarely gave way to thinking of how our lives could change. I thought we should be grateful for where we were and what we had, even if it was not what we had originally set out to do. But Brandon had a vision, the same vision we had for ourselves over 20 years ago. And when given the opportunity, he could name every single thing we were doing that was not in alignment with the things we said we wanted. A typical conversation would end up with me reciting everything we had accomplished and everything we had going for us. And then that’s when the conversation would typically turn, and he would remind me of this vision of where he wanted us to be, of where he thought we would be.

And that’s when I would get most uncomfortable because I didn’t believe this vision actually existed—that it could ever be a reality. It’s like I didn’t believe people could have the life they truly wanted. I was full of fear and doubt and I didn’t want to talk about it.

Brandon would start by reminding me that together we always dreamed of living in an old, historic home. He envisioned sunrises in the morning and sunsets in the evening and playing outside in a big yard in between. He knew he wanted our days to be filled with as much time with each other and our kids as we could possibly fit in. He would recite to me, “I just want a house in a town on a street with a sidewalk…”

And this is where I wouldn’t say anything. I wouldn’t say anything because I had nothing to say.

Actually, that’s not true, I had nothing to say that he would want to hear. In my mind, all I could think is “This place doesn’t exist. This life doesn’t exist.”

I am ashamed now that is what I was thinking. I think often of all of the dreams and visions that have ever been shared with me from any number of people. I encourage other people’s dreams and visions and I tell them to find it and to go for it. Sadly, that’s not what I was telling Brandon at the time. I would not tell him anything because I was afraid.

If this vision did exist, it wasn’t any place I had ever seen. To go there or to even find it would mean a life different than what we had at the time, and something different meant major changes. I was afraid of what it would mean to chase this vision. I was afraid—and so I avoided.

Eventually, at some point, I realized I was not so much afraid of change as I was making a decision and it being the wrong one. At the time, I realized we were not strangers to big changes and big moves, but I felt the changes we had made leading up to that moment felt like they were the wrong ones—or at least for the wrong reasons. I felt like we had made big moves based on career opportunities and increasing salaries, and every time, were left feeling dissatisfied and having to make the pieces fit.

I don’t know what made my heart change, but finally, I let go of the fear and I told Brandon what I should have told him all along—I love you and I will follow you anywhere, you just have to tell me where.

This was a real turning point and opened the floodgate for lots of future conversations. This opened the door so we could finally start talking again, visioning again, the way we did when we were first dating. If he was going to pick a place, there was going to be plenty to talk about. This time also gave me the space to relax, to not feel like we were going to make a knee-jerk decision, and to really listen and to dream myself. If we could go anywhere, where would I want to be?

So we started dreaming…not in our heads, but in our hearts…and we did this dreaming together.

The truth is, I really had no idea then where these conversations were going to lead us. I just knew I was tired of avoiding—avoiding Brandon and avoiding what we knew we both held in our hearts. Now that we have found those dreams, we get excited and eager to find more and figure out how to chase after them, too. The truth is, we have worked through the fear and we have renewed the life we live together.

This. This is where I want to be.