No more dreams?

We were downtown for a bit last night and a guy we know, who works on the sport fishing boats that take out gringo fishermen, came and sat with us for awhile. He wants to get to the USA so that he can work on sport boats there and make more money and then come back here, marry his girlfriend and live happily ever after. I was surprised to hear him talk about this. At least he wants to do it legally. Many of the people we know, don't.

It is just such a big deal down here. Every young person we talk to (it seems), is dying to get across that border to find fortune and wealth in the land of opportunity. It really distresses me to hear some of them talk about going in trucks, or they know a guy who knows a guy who can get you into a tunnel, the stories go on and on. We try to tell them about the realities of being an illegal, the poor wages, the cramped living conditions, the fear of going to jail. Nothing seems to disway them.

Anyway, we were talking about this on the way home. I finally said, "Oh well, everybody has to have some kind of dream." Which led me to then ask B if he still had any dreams. He replied that yes, he wanted to be healthy, happy and live a good life. I told him that that was not a dream. That was just living. Like for years, our dream was to retire early and make this island our home. It seemed like everything we did for years was geared to achieving this dream. And we did it. We fell into silence for awhile and I said, "I don't have any dreams either."

That has left me all sad and depressed and feeling very old. Have we really gotten to the point in our life where we are just happy with the status quo. No more dreams of the future and what we want to accomplish. But is this a bad thing? To have achieved your goal and then to be happy with it? I just don't know. I have to give this a lot more thought.