As a young person, I spent huge amounts of time imagining the future.
Who I would marry.
What kind of mark I would leave on the world.

There was always an abundance of possibility waiting out there in the land of wondering.

There is a particular kind of romanticism and low-grade adrenaline that comes when you begin constructing a future in your mind. 

Then before you know it … it begins, one by one, you find yourself stepping into moments you had only ever visited in your imagination: flatting with your mates, travelling to epic places, falling in love. Then, planning a wedding and hanging that iconic photo on the wall. Then maybe your first child. Then working toward buying a house. Then landing the job you always wanted. And then… and then.

What’s interesting is that each of these “firsts” brings a kind of internal confirmation, a subtle sense of unconscious achievement,  simply because it once existed only in the world of your hopes and dreams.

And then, gradually, there are fewer firsts. Life shifts toward maintenance. Less manifesting meaningful moments, more managing what is.

Neuroimaging research suggests that as we age, the centre of our cognitive gravity shifts. The imaginative, more expansive modes of thinking that often mark our young adult years gradually give way to more analytical, logical patterns.  Yes, we become more efficient, yet often lose much of our imaginative instincts.  This shift to me carries a subtle yet serious danger.

As I get older, I’ve begun to feel the circling presence of this truth.
A pull toward pessimism rather than possibility.
A temptation to critique more than celebrate. A slow drift toward frustration instead of framing this stage of life with faith.

I don’t know about you yet, At some point, many of us stop living from imagination and begin living only from the familiar. Our defaults quietly disown our dreams.

Instead of creating the future, we begin to ordain the ordinary and excuse ourselves from possibility.
Instead of stepping forward in faith, we retreat to what feels reasonable and safe. Logic is becoming our coach and our compass.
They say we can literally rewire our brains. A kind of plasticity awaits our braver selves — not only to dream again, but to risk and reimagine with our embodied lives. To re-enter the practice of possibility.

A valley of dry bones may sound like Soley ancient imagery,  a bit dramatic and distant.
Yet there are seasons when that kind of picture feels strangely familiar.

So much of our potential lying lifeless in the field.
Dreams scattered across the ground.

In those moments, we need to listen for a different kind of voice 
prophetic words that dare to speak hope,
to name an alternative future,
to call breath back into what feels brittle.

Perhaps growing older is not about settling into maintenance,
but about finding a deeper breath for the life we already have.