This weekend, I’m on a pilgrimage to a faraway land with my wife, Crass.
(Well, two hours away. Which isn’t that far away when you live in the Midwest.)
Kalamazoo, which I swear to God is the name of a real place in Michigan, has been kind to us so far. We decided to travel here for one specific reason — to daydream together about our future lives. Should everything go as planned, this will be our home in the next few years. And I mean, it’s a pretty charming place.
Kalamazoo is, among many other things, home to the only music therapy graduate program in the state. It’s also halfway between Detroit and South Bend, IN, where my girlfriend, Olivia, lives. And when we have Cadence down the road, the Kalamazoo Promise will ensure she gets a free ride to college.
I’m squirming with excitement as I write this from our hotel room. As we passed tattoo shop after tattoo shop, Crass imagined applying for an apprenticeship at one. Walking through the nature preserve in the neighboring city of Portage, we talked about how we’d take our future dog on walks there someday. (The dog would be a Shiba Inu named Sprinkles, natch.) We added so many restaurants to our list of places to try once we move out here, and every thirty seconds or so, I would point out a house — “THAT’S THE ONE!”
I think it’s important to have a healthy sense of what’s realistic when planning for the future, but I also think it’s important to leave a little room to dream. When I was in college, I used to ride my bike through the cute little apartment complex near the ugly dorms I lived in at the time. I wondered what it would be like to have a significant other I lived with in an apartment like that, and maybe a cat. I would dream about writing stuff while lounging on my “corner couch” — the word I used for “sectional” growing up, and the true marker of adult success in my developing brain.
I didn’t get to live in those apartments, but I live somewhere even nicer now, with a cat and my wife. I get to write a personal blog that seems to have a small but dedicated following, which absolutely blows my mind. And not only do I have a corner couch, but we’re planning on getting an even nicer corner couch once we move.
Did I manifest this stuff by dreaming about it hard enough? I don’t know. I’ve been reading a lot about the law of attraction and how you can manifest the things you want through positive thinking. Do I necessarily believe it? I don’t know yet. But I do know thinking positively is way better than wallowing in doubt and self-pity. Maybe there is something valuable in the act of allowing yourself to dream a little.
I pray we end up here in the next few years, but if we don’t, for whatever reason, I know God and the universe will work things out for the best. Being here, though, it honestly feels like we’re dipping our toe into the rest of our lives. I’ve got such a good feeling from this little town with a silly name.
Here’s to you, Kalamazoo.
JESSA JOYCE 