Dream Fulfilled

I wasn't like every other kid, you know, who dreams about being an astronaut. I was always more interested in what bark was made out of on a tree.

I know…I know…I stole that line from Zoolander. But chiseled good looks and an appreciation for Richard Gere aren’t the only things Hansel and I have in common: I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming an astronaut either.

That’s not to say I wasn’t a dreamer. It’s just that my dreams of the future were ever-changing; a reflection of whatever unhealthy obsession consumed me at the time.

While in grade school, I figured I’d spend my adult years driving a Jalopy and solving mysteries, the end result of learning to read courtesy of the Hardy Boys.

Sadly, by the time I turned nine, my burgeoning maturity allowed me to pick up on the collections' rampant homosexual undertones. While curious, I decided upon a different path.

In high school, all that mattered was soccer. I couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t involve playing professionally. That dream ended abruptly on the morning of August 24, 1993 -- my first day at pre-season camp at Trenton State College -- when 15 upperclassmen rudely introduced me to the realization that I wasn’t particularly good.

With private investigation and professional athletics no longer viable options, I needed a new escape. I found that escape in skiing. For the better part of the next five years, when I wasn’t trekking up to Vermont for weekend getaways, I was killing time in class committing to memory a dog-eared copy of Ski Magazine’s annual Resort Guide. Detailing the ins and outs of North America’s 50 most popular ski areas, the words on the pages took me far away from Cost Accounting 101, transporting me to distant locales that looked and sounded too serene and beautiful to be real.

I can’t explain why, but I knew then that I wanted to one day call one of those pages home, even if just for a while. It all sounded so appealing: to live in a town where crime is an afterthought and community is more than just the middle name of the local pool, where horse-drawn sleighs replace horn-pounding motorists, where an impending snowstorm is met not with anger over the impact on the morning commute, but rather with an electric anticipation towards the morning on the mountain.

As I said, I can’t explain why this became my dream, nor do I expect anyone else to share or even understand it. But just the same, it did.

This afternoon, I stopped by my office to pick up some client files. Greeting me upon my arrival, lying on the floor where it had landed after its trip through the mail slot, was the 2006 edition of the Resort Guide.

As I looked at the cover, it was 1995 all over again. And I was left with just one thought…

I’m here.