The Journey Not the Destination

A little over a decade ago, my friend Noah and I began a long-distance writing project that essentially had us e-mailing our personal journal entries to each other. Over the course of the next eight years we accumulated thousands of pages of personal stories, inside jokes, philosophical rants, and dreams of our futures. At the time we lived on opposite coasts in opposite situations, but through our writing we discovered that we had similar dreams of having families, working with kids, becoming neighbors, and most importantly, finding a way to make a ton of money with very little effort. At the time we were both terminally single, could barely take care of ourselves let alone a family, and neither of our jobs were nearly rewarding enough to make them a career. 

Ten years later, Noah and I live in the same community, we have wonderful wives and beautiful children, and until recently we both worked in education. Noah moved from New York in 2004, coached high school basketball with me, fell in love, stuck around, and made a life for himself. Now he's an athletic director, a husband, and a father. I fell in love, too, went back to school, became a counselor, returned to the coast, stuck around, and made a life and family for myself, too. It's amazing how much we created through sharing our dreams and finding a way to realize them. 

Unfortunately, we haven't been quite as successful at finding that high reward job situation. And I don't just mean that "If you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life" crap, because I did love my job, but it was still work. Every day. What Noah and I were looking for was something more along the lines of getting paid for just being ourselves. We considered converting our thousands of journal pages into a screenplay about two guys growing up through their individual and shared experiences, but quickly realized that nobody finds us nearly as interesting or entertaining as we do. We explored other book ideas - a Harry Potter spoof that someone else ended up writing two years later, a self-help book that would climb the bestsellers list because of its amazing title(i.e "Lose Weight, Make Money, Have Sex," or "The Four Disagreements"), or a Greek myth based on the Star Wars trilogy that actually had me watching episodes IV through VI with a notepad and a case of wine and calling it "research." Where is that damn notepad?

So where am I going with all of this? I don't know. I just felt like I needed to pay tribute to Noah for being the person I write to when I'm writing. Really writing. Effortlessly. When I changed the direction of this blog a few weeks ago, I did it for a few reasons - to increase traffic to my site, to build a fan base, and to make a few dollars along the way. I did all of those things - with the added bonus of pissing off a few thousand people - but what I rediscovered along the way was even more valuable. My writing voice. The voice I cultivated through days and months and years of writing to a person I trust, respect, and love unconditionally. Even though he's a Yankees fan.

I still have a dream of publishing a novel, a children's book, or even a self-help book on how to be a parent and not lose your mind and your sense of identity. Or better yet, how to accept that those things are going to happen and deal with it.

I keep meaning to write a catch-up blog on what's been going on with Amari since I went all Hollywood last month, but then things like baseball and nostalgic friendships get in the way. Suffice it to say that being a dad continues to exceed any expectations I ever had. It's not always easy, but it's always worth it. We may not have money, but our lives are indescribably rich.

G'night, Skipper.
IF

Reya and Nicole

Carrie and Amari