What My One Year Old Teaches Us About Reaching Our Dreams

Today more than two dozen friends and family gathered from all across the United States and even across the international border to celebrate the first birthday of my beautiful little daughter Clara.

As I pause to reflect on this last year of my life I feel myself a bit overwhelmed. They say having a baby is a massive change in life, and it could not be any truer. A year and nine months ago, my wife and I were on a sailing trip to the San Juan Islands of Washington state. The two-week vacation was just what we needed after two intense years. Alix had just finished her master’s program, and I was working a soul-crushing job to support us.

During that sailing trip, we had time to decompress and talk our short and long term dreams. The trip also coincided with our anniversary. We brought a bottle of wine along to celebrate. My wife is an extremely lightweight drinker, even just two sips of wine and she’s a goner! I am not kidding, anybody who knows her will vouch for that! After hiking one of the gorgeous San Juan Islands, and taking an icy cold swim in Puget sound, we settled into the cockpit of our sailboat for the evening and popped open the bottle, to celebrate our anniversary. I had only a couple of glasses, but Alix finished the bottle herself!! It was usual, but we did not think too much of it at the time. A couple…