Closing soon: Our spring sale on My Best Journal is ending. If you've been meaning to grab it and use journaling to change your life, now's the move. 30% off with code SPRING30 at checkout. Hope you enjoy today’s story... it's a personal one.
Hey Reader,
When I was eight years old the only thing I wanted was a dog.
Air Bud was always on Disney channel, and my friends all had cool dogs. But for whatever reason my parents said no.
Things were chaotic at home, and I think a part of me just wanted something that could get me through it.
Every spring, my mom would take my brother and me down to Arizona to see my grandpa.
He lived on one of those retirement golf courses where the trailers all look the same and everyone drives golf carts instead of cars.
A few doors down lived this big Texan dog breeder. He had five labs of his own who were all trained to win awards.
I spent every afternoon outside his place throwing fake ducks across the greens and watching his labs get after them.
The last day of the trip he looks at my mom and says in his southern accent, “That boy needs a dog! I breed & train ‘em, I’ll ship one to you anywhere in the country. Just shoot me the address.”
My mom smiled, thanked him, and probably thought he was just being nice.
Until a week later, our phone rang and it was him. “I got Clark’s dog ready. I just need to know where to send it.”
I lost my fu*king mind.
I was running around the house screaming, “I’m getting a dog!” The thing I’d wanted my whole life was about to happen.
My dad got home that night and my mom broke the news to him.
He shut it down on the spot.
There will be NO dog. End of discussion.
I was crushed in a way I can still feel when I write this sentence.
Christmas rolled around a few months later, and my whole extended family crammed into my grandma’s single-wide trailer. Twenty people shoulder to shoulder with crockpots of Velveeta dip and wrapping paper everywhere.
My grandpa (who was always pulling a prank on someone) stood up and made an announcement. “All right you guys… we have one final present! This one’s for Clark. It’s a special one too, so Clark… close your eyes.”
I closed them. The whole room went silent.
My grandpa left the room… came back in, and shouts “open your eyes!”
And what do I see?
Across the room… sitting on the floor… a large dog crate.
I almost started crying right there.
“Holy shit, I’m getting a dog!” I thought.
I sprinted across the room, flung open the crate door…
and staring back at me was a Furby.
One of those fuzzy animatronic toys with the fake blinking eyes.
A fucking Furby.
I threw it on the floor and ran out of the trailer sobbing.
Standing out there in the cold, listening to my whole family in my grandma’s trailer laughing without me…
I made a promise to myself that when I grew up I was going to have as many dogs as I could possibly fit in my life… and that nobody was going to be able to stop me.
26 years… and here we are.
My two rescue dogs (Hondo and Nita) are sleeping at my feet while I write this.
I think about that kid outside the trailer sometimes.
I never told anyone about that promise. It just kind of sat there for 26 years. And I don’t even think I remembered making it until a few months ago when I brought Nita home from the shelter.
Kind of wild how much of what you promised yourself at eight is still running the show at 34.
Some of those promises we kept, some we didn’t.
But I think as achievers we get so caught up in making our future self proud… we forget to make our past self proud too.
And how my dogs aren’t for future me, they’re for that kid crying outside the trailer.
I make a lot of content on reinvention, identity shifting, and designing your life. And I believe in it wholeheartedly.
But lately I’m starting to think a lot of what we call reinvention beyond your thirties is actually rediscovery.
Remembering what you wanted before you learned to just want things that sounded impressive.
The hobbies you dropped or dreams you wrote off as unrealistic. The version of you that wanted to play drums, write books, or own a farm.
That kid wasn’t naive. He had the honest gut read on what mattered before the optimizing and strategizing got in his way.
So my question for you to sit with this week and dig into is simple:
What did eight-year-old you want more than anything, Reader?
Guarantee it wasn’t a Furby.
See you next Saturday.
CK
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P.P.S. No newsletter next week (wedding day). So see you back here on the 9th!
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