I Was Living My Dream Life and Still Burned Out: What Miss Rumphius Taught Me About What Was Actually Missing (Part 1)
What Living My Dream Life Actually Felt Like
I'm imitating my best Princess Diana look with an oversized sweater and biker shorts. My iced coffee is the perfect color that matches the perfect smile from the barista at Red Cup. The "Good Morning" scribbled in Sharpie makes me smile back larger (who am I? smiling before coffee).
I've walked these streets before. My heart ached to leave then, too. But I am back now, two years later, on a New England road trip. I get to call this place home for the next two weeks.
My little studio sits atop a hill. There's a loveseat where I can sit and just peek at the sea through the largest windows ever. They pour in light while I am working my remote 9-5 job (the one I'll eventually be laid off from in six months). My mornings are slow with a coffee and a bagel, and a walk around town. I work with a view, then have dinner in town. Ordering clam chowder as an appetizer is never not an option. The flowers seem more vibrant, or maybe I am just noticing them more. On the weekends, I stroll through the little stores with ice cream and buy pottery from a local market. The people smile, they seem happy. They seem present.
I am present.
I am elated.
I am living my dream.
Why I Came Home From My Dream Life Still Burned Out
But then I was home. There was no ocean view from a window. Only a quaint little garden that was slowly transitioning to fall, the colors more muted, nothing like what I saw in Boothbay Harbor. My mom was having surgery. She had been coughing up blood. We weren't sure what it meant. (It was cancer, and she is doing great now.)
Life was spinning faster, and I wasn't savoring it; I wasn't present. I was racing. Forgetting to notice the little things. I've always liked who I am by the coast. I am slower. Softer. But now I am not by the coast. I am home, and those feelings are slipping.
I've always envisioned my dream life: farmers market and linen pants, salt air, little veggie garden out back, coastal breeze, a large desk to create at that sits below a larger window, a chrome fridge with magnets and notes, lavender and rosemary and lupines by the front door, and books and journals and handwritten cards and coffee mugs on most surfaces.
Someday. Someday. Someday.
My burnout was back (it never left), and everything felt all-consuming. I was oscillating between bone-deep tiredness and corporate rage.
The Childhood Book That Changed How I See Burnout Recovery
When I was in Boothbay Harbor, I purchased Miss Rumphius. It was a favorite book from my childhood. A classic children's picture book by Barbara Cooney, published in 1982, about a woman who fulfills her childhood dreams of traveling the world and living by the sea, and then dedicates herself to making the world more beautiful by planting lupine flowers along the coast of Maine.
My mom would read it to me. She even had a page displayed in her bedroom.
There is one image of an old Miss Rumphius bent over her lupines with her little tuxedo cat, astonished that her small patch of beautiful lupines had spread by the wind to another destination. The lupines are bright, the green backgrounds are soft, and Miss Rumphius' hair is red, streaked with white.
The illustrations are beautiful, the colors are vibrant, just like the flowers in Boothbay Harbor. It's one of the reasons I want lupines in my dream life. But it is more than just lupines. It's the way I see myself in Miss Rumphius. It's how she was happy, single and childfree. How she prioritized her travel, her joy, and her commitment to her dreams that she didn't rush — each one arriving in its own time, and when she'd had enough of one, life carried her to the next.
Miss Rumphius vowed that when she grew up, she would travel the world and live in a house by the sea.
But her last dream was planted by her grandfather, to make the world more beautiful, and now she had her answer: lupines.
How Burnout Taught Me to Stop Waiting for Someday
Miss Rumphius is the dream. But I don't want to wait till someday to live like her. Someday became a regular fixture in my vocabulary. The word filled my journals just as much as it filled my inner monologue. Someday. Someday. Someday. An annoying little adverb that is indefinite.
I've learned through my layoff. Through my burnout recovery. But most importantly, through my mom's cancer journey, that someday isn't guaranteed.
And my dream life was littered with that godawful word that mocked me. Someday I'll have a salty, coastal breeze. Someday I'll have the lavender and rosemary bushes. Someday… (is the word annoying you as much as it does me? Good.)
How to Start Living Your Dream Life Before You Have Everything
So how do I rectify this? How do I remove someday from my vocabulary? Because if I am being honest (and I'll always be honest), I have the linen pants. I attend the farmers' markets in town. I have my little veggie garden in the family shared garden. I just planted lupines. I have a fridge with magnets from my travels. There are many lavender bushes in the shared garden (no rosemary, we can't keep that alive to save our lives). I have a big desk that I create from, it overlooks the trees that change with each season. And there are books, and too many coffee cups everywhere.
So what is missing from my dream life? My Miss Rumphius life? Is it the cottage by the sea? The salty air?
I know this: the cottage and salt air will come. But the third dream — the one her grandfather asked of her — that one doesn't require someday. I've traveled. I've felt the coast. What's left is scattering the seeds. Making my corner of the world more beautiful, right here, right now.
So how do I — how do we — live like Miss Rumphius? How do we make our corner of the world a little bit more beautiful?
Part 2 is coming — the practical side of this recognition. How to see what's already blooming in your own life, find your lupine seeds, and start making your corner of the world more beautiful right now.
