When you outgrow the dream you have worked towards for years
The grief and gift of a dream that almost came true.
Monday night, 11:30 pm, my latest Substack article is finally scheduled. Done.
On my way to bed, I make tea. While I wait for the water to heat up, my intuition nudges: go check out TrustedHousesitters.
It’s not that I’ve been actively using the page, but our leap abroad is coming closer.
So I decide to give in to the intuitive nudge late at night, move my tired body upstairs and start up the computer.
It takes a few attempts to get the search and filters right.
And then, there it is:
the perfect house sit.
An 80-hectare secluded property nestled in the olive trees and wild nature of Andalusia.
Spacious, quiet, immersed in the vast nothingness.
Far away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.
Just a dog and the land to take care of.
Five months.
I was lit!
I send it to my partner on Signal, then run downstairs to tell him.
“There’s no way I’m sleeping now,” I say. “Let’s update our profile and apply now. These go fast.”
And so we do.
I update the profile to match our dream. He writes the application.
Five months of no rent. Slow predictability. Stability. Finca life. It’s perfect.
Until we finally go to bed long after midnight.
The realization
Nestled in the quiet and dark, my intuition speaks again.
Is this what you really want? Or is this an old dream you are chasing?
How would you feel spending your winter there?
My body contracts.
Five months in a cold, rustic house. Isolated. Living in outdoor clothes.
Chest closed. Pit in stomach.
The vision I’ve quietly held for our next chapter is different: surfing, beach bars, city strolls. Light. Bright. Ease and flow.
I just decluttered my wardrobe and was ready to donate everything that didn’t feel alive anymore.
To spend the winter on that finca, I needed to reactivate the exact clothes I just threw out.
My thoughts spiral.
I just spent half of my sacred night’s sleep applying for something that I don’t even know if I want anymore.
I don’t even know what I want now.
That dream—we never truly arrived at it, and now it is gone.
Grief. For the dream we worked so hard for and never lived.
What happened
When I saw the sit, my excitement was real. I was SO activated.
We’ve been working towards that dream of the big piece of land, the secluded house—for years.
It represented freedom, sovereignty, presence, connection to land.
It started in 2020 with the new 20-years Jupiter and Saturn cycle.
We roamed the US for a year in our van, scouting places.
We looked at hundreds of listings.
We adopted a wolfdog to live on that land.
We built our businesses to work independently and remote.
We invested our pension funds.
And now, we are finally ready to move to Spain and make the dream come true.
The fundings are about to come in, the boxes nearly packed, the lifestyle tested and proven.
After two years in the van, I know I can live with little. I can live off-grid.
After 2,5 years in a place I barely know anyone, I know I can live alone.
Living with a wolfdog, I know the wild.
This house sit would have served as the perfect bridge to taste that andalusian experience before buying. To scout the region.
To settle faster, instead of wander.
And yet, the idea of staying there now feels like missing out. Flat, boring, not vibrant.
The taste of the next season
So while I have proven to myself that I could live that life—that I don’t depend on others, the grid, the jobs, the system—I no longer want it.
This is a season of choice.
Yes, the dream is finally accessible now.
But the question is: what feels alive now? What lights me up?
And to be honest, I don’t know exactly what that life looks like.
I just know I crave connection, community, inspiration.
I crave lightness and laughter. I’m done carrying the heavy load.
I know I need another season of wander, of lightness, of exploration, of experimentation, of meeting land and humans to figure out what’s next.
The gift
I’m glad I spent those hours on that application, I’m glad I ran in the wrong direction.
It showed me yet another piece I’m ready to release.
A dream I believed was still true. A dream I have outgrown just before I arrived.
And that is a gift too.
Because it’s never about the arrival, but about who you become through the journey.
Have you ever chased a dream, only to realize it no longer fit when you arrived?
With love,
Rahel Rhea
