Dreams Of New England

I've written before in detail about how I worry about the future. I've also written about how I make up random and elaborate plans for the future. I usually see this as a bad thing, or a sign that I'm not trusting God enough with my life. That may be true when it comes to the worry, but I don't think it's always true when it comes to the plans.

Now, I'm using "plans" here in a very relative sense. I'm not actually putting it on my agenda and really going for these goals. They are more like carefully-researched dreams. I think about them, and instead of leaving them in the realm of half-baked ideas, I decide to do a little research to make them more real. Usually they revolve around places where I want to live instead of jobs I want to do or exotic destinations I want to travel to. Yeah, most of my dreams are mundane.

I'm stuck in North Carolina for four years after I'm done with college (or graduate school, if I decide to do that immediately after college). It's part of my teaching contract which is paying for my education right now. After that, though, I'm kind of itching to get out of the state. Don't get me wrong, I think North Carolina is great. In fact, I love it, and if you're looking for a good state to move to, I highly suggest it.

However, I just want to be somewhere else. I've planned to live in Seattle before, and also Dayton, Ohio and College Station, Texas. Currently, my dreams lie in New England. To be exact, I think I want to live in Vermont. There are few reasons for this. For one, even though I live in what I like to call the Los Angeles of the Carolinas, I'm really a fan of colder weather. Autumn is my favorite season, and I'm also a fan of small towns and villages. Vermont's largest city, Burlington, is the size of my home town, which isn't even in the top ten of North Carolina's biggest cities.

Now, granted, I've never visited Vermont (or New England at all). But I have friends and family who live there or have visited and they all sing its praises. Looking at pictures, it really is special. In North Carolina, you have to live at the mountains or the beaches to get beautiful scenery. A lot of Vermont just looks unspoiled and crisp, and I like that. So yeah, right now when I picture my adult self, I see him as a Southern guy living in the small town of West Rutland, Vermont. Why West Rutland? Because even Burlington is too big for me right now.

I just picture myself teaching at West Rutland's high school (which, yes, I've also researched), and eventually (once I've published some fiction), teaching at Castleton State College, which is pictured above and is nearby (I looked it up on Google Maps). And of course I don't just imagine myself in this weird dream future. I think right now I would like to adopt three children (if I'm married or partnered or whatever, I don't know. That never enters my future plans because I really do leave it up to God).

Now, I'm not the kind of parent who would plan my children's lives for them ahead of time, but... I have kind of imaged that my oldest son would attend University of Vermont, my middle child (a girl) would go to Johnson State College, and my youngest son would go to Vermont Tech. Yes, I know I'm crazy and need to find something better to do with my time.

Maybe if my desire to live in New England doesn't die down in six years, I'll make it there. I got to settle down somewhere and somewhere far away from home doesn't bother me at all. Of course, the other dreams about where I'll work and how many kids I'll have (and where they'll go to college) are not very likely, but hey, that's why they're called dreams.

I promise I'll have less of a rambling post and get back to gay/ex-gay stuff soon. Right now I just feel like going off on tangents, and what would this blog be if I didn't just do what I felt like doing? Take care, everyone!