Don’t Wait for Someday

The wind whipped our hair in circles as we rode the top deck of a red double-decker bus. I held my daughter’s hat to her head and smiled when she looked up at me. The London sun lit the fresh gold of Elizabeth Tower. For a moment, everything felt perfect. Then, grief rose in my throat, thinking of my mom.

PBS was often on our TV when I was growing up. Rick Steves would be marveling at another Italian marble nude before raising a glass of red wine to the camera with a warm, “Salute!” My mom would sit there with her hand pressed to her chest, as though holding her heart in, as it expanded with wonder at the architecture and food.

“Oh, I’d love to go to Europe,” she’d say. And then she’d add, “someday.”

“Go, Mom! Do one of these Rick Steves’ trips or something,” I’d say.
“I’d love to,” she’d respond.

I imagined her sitting on the bus seat in front of me, headset in ears, my Dad by her side, taking in the storybook magic of Tower Bridge. Her delight would have been enormous.

But that was my storybook. My parents waited for someday. They waited for the “right” time to travel abroad to see London, France, and Italy. They worried about the language barrier in Italy and France, and never believed me or my brothers when we said it wouldn’t be a problem. They stayed in the familiar comfort zone.

And as I held my daughter’s hat, picturing my mom, she was actually back home in Oregon, asleep on the couch. Lewy Body Dementia was deteriorating her cognition and leaving her with chronic nausea, fatigue, tremors, and difficulty walking.

Within a short period of time, someday had become a closed door, impossible to reopen.

I’ll admit, I’ve said plenty of ‘somedays’ too.

For nearly a decade, my husband Steve and I would wave goodbye to our friend Chris on FaceTime, saying, “Someday, we’ll come visit Wales.” We’d hang up, and I’d look at Steve and repeat: “Someday.”

Year after year, we had our reasons: money, looming layoffs at his work, long travel with young kids, time away. It never felt like the right time.

But loss has a way of waking you up. A wildfire we barely escaped. My mom’s sudden decline. Friends facing their own health battles. Each one stripped away the illusion of certainty. That’s when I realized: we were doing exactly what my parents did. We were waiting for someday.

Someday isn’t a guarantee. It’s a bet we make with life. And tomorrow isn’t a sure thing.

“Babe!” I said, with a little too much enthusiasm for the morning. Steve looked up from his phone, chewing oatmeal, subtly bracing for what was coming next.

“We’ve been saying we’ll visit Chris ‘someday’ for nearly ten years. If we keep saying ‘someday,’ when will it actually happen? Do we want another decade to go by?”

Steve gave me that look he always does when I get dreamy. I can almost see the grid of a spreadsheet in his mind. Costs. Logistics. Timing. But beneath the practicality, I also saw he was intrigued and excited.

“There’s no harm in looking at ticket prices,” he said.

And that one conversation, plus a few clicks on British Airways, set a whole adventure in motion.

We’ve had many great adventures. But there are other things I’m not doing right now, because it’s the season we’re in.

There are somedays. And there are seasons.

Seasons are the times when life asks us to pause and be patient: illness, grief, caregiving. Times when a big leap feels out of reach, or more draining than exhilarating. There’s wisdom in recognizing and honoring life’s seasons.

I’m in one of those seasons right now. This year, everything I’ve scheduled has come with the awareness that it might need to be canceled. I didn’t host any retreats because the uncertainty of my mom’s days felt like too much.

And then there’s my book. Sometimes I fear it’s drifting toward ‘someday.’ It’s forming, painfully slowly. I remind myself I’m in a season, and even baby steps keep it from being shelved.

But true somedays are different. They’re the things we put off because we believe there will always be more time. Or because we imagine that someday we’ll be different, without making the changes that would actually make us different.

We pause out of fear. Out of uncertainty. Because what we’ve never done feels riskier than what we know.

Somedays feel harmless. Until you wake up and realize the door has already closed.

Like the trip to Wales we postponed for nearly a decade, saying “someday” every time we waved goodbye.

Seasons and somedays get tangled together. But without the limits of certain seasons, we wouldn’t feel the urgency of living a someday now.

Honor your seasons. Live your somedays.

Travel is just one kind of “someday.” But the real somedays I’m talking about are the longings that live deep in your chest. The kind that make you press your hand to your heart when you imagine them.

Maybe it’s the book you keep saying you’ll write.

The conversation with your partner you’ve been meaning to have.

The business you want to start.

The people you ache to spend more time with.

This is about living on purpose, now.

If we wrote your story — the one where your “someday” finally happened — what would it be? How would it unfold?

Ask yourself, have you created a ‘someday’ out of self-doubt, fear, or the comfort of routine?

Don’t wait for someday. I carried that truth with me in the London breeze, my hair whipping around my face. Through London, Paris, and Wales, I kept hoping my mom could see it all through my eyes. She never got to see it through her own. She never got her someday.

I don’t want that for you.

We can live differently. Maybe the way we honor those who never reached their somedays is by daring to claim our own.

xo

Sarah

P.S. If you’ve got a “someday” tugging at you, join me for Your Wild Dream, Your Next Move. I’ll teach you practical tools to take your dream out of someday mode and into motion.

I write regularly about aliveness, fear, and the inner choices that shape our lives. Get the next one in your inbox.