When Teenage Dreams Meet Middle-Aged Reality

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What did you want to be when you were younger? Where did you want to be? Who did you want to be?

I’m not talking about when you were little. I’m not looking at the days when we all wanted to be ninjas or princesses. I am talking about when you became a teenager. Those were the years when things started to crystallize a little better. What was your dream at the time you entered high school?

Flash forward to the present day. Are you that person? Are you where you’d hoped you’d be? Doing what you’d hoped you’d be doing? I hope you are.

For me, my life over the last thirty years has consisted of having one foot in the so-called ‘real world,’ and one foot struggling to keep its footing in those teenage dream years. Maybe you’d say I’ve held on too long to dreams that might never come true. I’d counter with maybe you gave up on your dreams too quickly.

I have always dreamed of working in some sort of creative field. I have had ten books published, have hundreds of blogs, hundreds of videos on YouTube that I have created from scratch, and hundreds of podcasts. Everything has been created by me from beginning to end.

The time between when I graduated high school and the green-lighting of my first book was fifteen years. In those years, I was a stock boy, landscaper, and cook. There were many days that the fire or my creative dreams were reduced to a tiny glowing ember underneath a pile of ash.

I never gave up, though. Even when my life was a mass of turkey clubs and fries, I never stopped dreaming. My hope of someday using my creative brain to make a living kept me from falling down a rabbit hole of despair in my 20s that I probably would never have gotten out of. Sometimes a little hope goes a long way.

Giving up on my teenage dreams has always felt like I’d be slapping my younger self in the face. My dreams of being a writer or a filmmaker in high school carried me through a home life that was chaos on nearly every level.

I had a biological father who couldn’t have cared less about me unless I had money I could give him. I had a stepfather who it felt like had a mission to break my spirit both physically and emotionally. That teenager fought to keep going, so this middle-aged man fights to keep those dreams alive.

You don’t understand how important a little hope is until that’s just about all that you have. Through rejection by my father, I had hope. Through abuse from my stepfather, I had hope. Through depression, breakups, and confusion, I had hope.

What ended up happening is the older I got, I’m talking later 30s, I started to feel that hope turn to something else: purpose. The older I got, being unmarried with no children, the more I started to step back and look at my situation on a macro level. There had to be a reason why I was where I was at that point in my life.

It easily could have morphed into fear and desperation. Oh no, I need a wife, and I need to have kids and settle down before it’s too late. I went the opposite way. I said, the fact that I am almost totally unrestricted must mean something. It gives me freedom to keep pursuing those teenage dreams.

There is an inspirational meme that I have gone back to many times over the last several years. There are two men in tunnels digging with pick axes. Both are slowly digging toward a giant stash of diamonds. One man is mere inches away when he gives up and turns around. The other man, it is theorized, will keep digging and find his fortune. That is my hope.

I am 48 years old. I have been on this road in varying forms for 30 years. Sometimes I stray and get lost in the woods for a bit, but eventually I am back on the road. Heading for what? I don’t know. I have hope.

Later this summer, I am producing my first feature film. It is called The Cabin and is a short story I wrote back in 2008. It is this project that I feel is the full-circle moment. This is where teenage dream and middle-aged reality finally meet.

Back to the digging for diamonds meme I just mentioned. In my life, I crossed a series of imaginary lines that could have been crossroads. I couldn’t play guitar the way I’d hoped. I had no way of making any money writing poetry. I made pennies on each of the ebooks I spent countless hours writing, editing, and self-publishing. I got a book deal and sold a fair amount, but got little in royalties from any of them.

Over the course of fifteen years, I had several exit signs on that road of life. I doubt anyone would have even noticed that I’d silently gotten off the highway to find whatever rundown shack I could and settle in to waste away my remaining decades. But I kept going.

I'd rather explore a rundown shack than live in one.

If music, poetry, my ebooks, or even my traditionally published books didn’t change my life, there had to be something else on the horizon. It is a mix of hope and stubbornness that kept me digging for those diamonds.

The Cabin doesn’t arrive as an opportunity if I leave my dreams behind. Sure, my creative work has only given me modest financial gains, but it has given me something just as important: visibility. All of my work leaves a mighty imprint online. I am easy to find.

The work I did over the years allowed producer Frank Durant to find me. He was looking for someone to write the companion book for his upcoming Lady of the Dunes documentary in 2021. I could have turned it down, but my senses told me it was going to be an important project. It was. In some small way, we helped spur on law enforcement to solve the nearly fifty-year-old cold case of a murdered woman found in the dunes of Provincetown.

That project led to me getting a small role in an indie horror film, Cape Cod Cthulhu, directed by Mark Polonia. That project and meeting gave me an opening. Frank was the one who had initially been interested in The Cabin. We had spoken about it a few times over the course of maybe two years. He mentioned it to Mark as a potential film, and the rest is history.

Again, I believe everything in my life that has happened, or not happened, has led me to this moment. Having a wife and kids, while it would have been a blessing, would have left me unable to just up and go off on an adventure to film this movie later this summer.

If I had looked at my lack of financial gains through my creative endeavors over the years and given up at any point, The Cabin wouldn’t have happened. Hell, I could have given up early and never have even written The Cabin in the first place.

I want to do right by that teenage boy who was dealing with so much shit, but never let it break him. I want to do right by my mother, who always supported me. I want to do right by my family and friends who have proven time and again that they truly believe that I am on the right path, even during the times when I doubt myself.

When I was younger, I had hope. Now I have support. One is you just trying to survive another day. The other is people you care about telling you that you are worth the time. One is solitary. It is teenage angst, telling others I’ll do this on my own, whether you like it or not. The other is a village. It is the cheering crowd during the last mile of a grueling marathon.

At the end of my one marathon I ran.

Of course, hope and support don’t matter if you don’t put the work in. That isn’t a problem. For five years, I have worked a full-time job while also spending 15-20 hours weekly working on various creative projects. Work for your dreams, and they will work for you. I’m all for wishing and manifesting, but I’d rather climb the tree to get an apple rather than stand underneath it hoping one falls.

This summer in 2026 feels like the time when my teenage dream and my midlife reality have hit a perfect intersection. I have built up enough equity through years of hard work with little more than that dream to carry me forward.

Perhaps if I had been offered the chance to produce a feature film when I was fresh out of college, I wouldn’t have appreciated it. I’d have probably been smug and felt like it was all too easy. The fall would have likely been epic after that.

I think I had to go through the grind. I had to go through years of being the proverbial starving artist to fully appreciate a big opportunity when it arose. I won’t lie, there is also a little twinge of desperation. That little belief that I’d better go all out because it might be the only opportunity that I’ve got.

Nothing is for certain. I don’t have any delusions of grandeur. In my mind, The Cabin is a major milestone, but also the beginning of a new road. I foresee a streaming deal, DVD/Blu-ray sales, maybe a small theatrical release on Cape Cod. I don’t see making millions off a low-budget, indie, psychological, suspenseful horror film.

What I do see is that tunnel leading to the diamonds. Maybe The Cabin is the peak of my film career. If I believe that, then it will be no matter what. I have several other stories I’ve written that could easily be made into films. Maybe the screenplay gets me noticed. You’ve got to make the most of every chance you get.

Even if I go no higher than a producer of a small indie horror film, I will still forever be able to say I am a film producer. It’s just like when I ran my only marathon. I can forever say I am a marathon runner.

I want more than that, though. I have hustled way too long to be satisfied with ‘good enough.’ That begs the question. How will I know if I have truly succeeded in chasing that teenage dream? It’s actually very simple.

The day that I wake up and am fully financially supported by my creative endeavors, I will know I made it. I don’t need a 5,000 square foot house on the water. I don’t need a luxury sports car. I don’t need the latest and greatest of everything. I just want to wake up knowing my success has come from my creative mind and does not rely on a person or company that could literally destroy my life in a moment by terminating me.

I don’t need to be rich. I need to feel fulfilled. I don’t need to be better than everyone. I need to feel as good as anyone. Teenage me wouldn’t get it. Middle-aged me does.

Don’t ever give up chasing your dream, whatever it is. That’s the best way I can sum up all of what I have written. I could have thrown my hands up and said 'oh well’ when I failed at 23 with guitar, or failed at 26 with poetry, or failed at 32 with ebooks. By failure, I just mean I didn’t become financially stable.

Maybe I fail at 48 with film producing. Who knows? But I never went into any venture believing I’d fail. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. The Cabin is a culmination, but also a new beginning. It is the moment when a teenage dream meets middle-aged reality. I am ready for the ride, wherever it takes me.

Losing Your Spark

    I don’t know when it happens. I don’t know when the adventure of life slowly fades and is replaced by the repetitive and mundane. Over the last few years, I have slowly started feeling this way. I feel like my spark has faded and been lost.

    It is hard for me to tell if this is just a part of the ‘mid-life crisis’ that comes when you get deep into your 40s. Or perhaps this feeling of malaise and being lost has its roots in the series of unfortunate events that have dotted my last several years.

    When you lose a loved one, it changes you. When you lose several in rapid succession, it does irreparable damage. Your brain and heart don’t get a chance to process one loss, and another comes rushing in to knock you upside the head. And how do you process such losses when you feel like you have nobody to talk to about them?

    At this point in time, I feel like I have two types of people in my life. Ones who listen to me like they're listening to the ‘on hold’ music waiting for a real conversation to begin. Then there are the ones who simply cannot just listen. Any conversation devolves into a pissing contest over whose problems are worse. That usually ends with me deferring to them and just putting my problems, which we never come back to, on the back burner.

    But what of the spark? That zest for life, that yearning for the future. What happens to it? Some people seemingly never run out of fuel for that spark. Others, like me, are just staring at a cold fire pit, wondering where the lighter fluid is.



    When I was a teenager in the 1990s, the spark raged out of control. I was full of the angst that the Grunge movement and my own childhood had instilled in me. I was fighting for my future. I was working hard to do well in school so that I could have the future I wanted. I was planning on that future with friends, many of whom are still big parts of my life to this day. I was bound and determined to make it and filled with the energy to prove it. My apologies to 16-year-old me.

    When I was in my 20s in the 2000s, the spark was lit by an unending need for change. I did whatever I needed to do to find my path. If I had to leave a job that I felt was unfulfilling, I did it. If I had to move across the country a time or two, I packed my bags. I was lucky enough to find the love I had craved since I was a boy. I was also unfortunate enough to find that things like time and distance cannot always sustain love. Unflinching, I pressed on. I knew that each door that closed meant my future lay behind another one I had yet to find. I knew that risk-taking was the only way to truly change things. My apologies to 26-year-old me.

    When I was in my 30s in the 2010s, the spark engulfed me in the need for success and acceptance. The future I had dreamed of as a teenager felt like a raft attached to a slippery rope that I was slowly losing hold of. 

    What was success? What was love? The definitions changed with age. I wanted to be a published author, and that happened, now nine times over. Yet it didn’t lead to being a self-sustaining career. 

    I wanted to change day jobs so that I could at least feel fulfilled while waiting for my ship to come in. I did that, and yet my dissatisfaction only grew and festered. No matter the good that came to me, I was never fully happy. I was in the best shape of my life physically, but on the inside, I always felt not enough. I wanted to be as big as possible and yet still go as unnoticed as possible. That spark turned to an inward anger that burned me up and wore me out. My apologies to 36-year-old me.

    Now in my 40s in the 2020s, the spark lay dormant. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am still bound and determined to find the path I am meant to be on. Now it is far quieter and reserved, and cautious. It feels as though those losses I've suffered, 6 people in 5 years, have snuffed the spark out.

    There is no more teenage angst, though I wish there were. 16-year-old me would have a thing or two to say about my current mindset. 

    There is no more taking risks like you’re trying on a new shirt. I now worry more about the potential problems than the potential rewards. Maybe that comes with age, but 26-year-old me would tell me much of what my life consists of now is due to the risks I took back then. 

    There is no more ‘me against the world’ level of needing to prove myself. Shouting from the rooftops about who I am sounds like more effort than it’s worth these days. 36-year-old me would likely ask, ‘What in the world was everything we did for then?’

    These days, I feel like I packed all of my hopes and dreams onto the back of a snail and am watching it try to cross a busy highway. All of the various incarnations of myself would likely be shaking their heads for different reasons. Yet inside, I am still all of those people. There are times when I feel myself slipping into those old mindsets. But I feel like the ‘older and wiser’ version of me overrules them all. It says ‘Why push a sled full of rocks uphill when you can sail down a lazy river if both routes lead to the same destination?’

    Maybe in my 50s in the 2030s, I’ll look back on this and laugh because I found my spark again. Maybe I’ll apologize to the current version of me for something I haven’t even done yet. The spark inside you isn’t something tangible. It is a feeling, a movement, a driving force meant to get you through the journey we call life. It is also something that, if not cultivated and nurtured, can be lost. I will keep on looking for mine, and if you are looking for yours, know that you’re not the only one.

In My Footsteps: When A Smell Sparks Up Nostalgia

    

    Have you ever had a certain scent stir up intense memories? I’ve had a lot of recent experiences, especially during the warmer months. It centers around pine. Pine trees, pine needles, maybe the sap, I don’t know, but it’s strong. It happened again today while I was walking from my car into a client’s house which led me to write this. The smell of the pine needles strewn across the ground, coupled with the dry, late-summer air made a perfect potpourri. So much so that I had to stop and take a moment to acknowledge the memories and emotion that was brought to the surface.

    Whether on a forest trail or a bike trail the past comes softly calling. It always sends me back to the same place, the same time. Age sixteen, 1994. Why is that? It’s easy yet complicated.

    1994 was likely the last time that I felt the warmth of innocence. I was a sophomore in high school, still living in the neighborhood that had molded my childhood like fresh clay. It was a time when the world was still there to be conquered, but there was no rush to make concrete plans. I had dreams, to be a writer, filmmaker, something that gave my creative spirit joy. But there was time.

The old tracks filled with pine trees.(2009)

    1994 was a time in life when everybody was still here. I had never experienced loss. I didn’t know the deep and permanent scars that can be left in your heart when you lose someone, whether just from your life or from this earth entirely. I sit back now and think about all that I didn’t know about the world and I wish I could go back there. I think about things I didn’t know about people, places, and things, and wish I could go back there.

    1994 was an innocent time. School was relatively easy albeit time-consuming. Life was cluttered with amazing friends. It was filled with fun times when fun times were so simple and basic and the worries were not real worries. Did I finish my homework? Does that girl like me? Do I have enough money to buy anything good at the corner store?

    I was lucky enough to live in an area that allowed me to walk through quiet streets, through some secluded wooded pathways, and to a tiny strip mall where my friends and I would buy soda, chips, and candy.

Quiet streets to walk.

    There were abandoned railroad tracks and sandy paths running under rows of power lines. We’d walk the tracks, or sneak onto the nearby golf course. I’d feel like I was on an adventure but never felt worried or threatened by life. The world was happy. The world was safe. Along those railroad tracks, along those sandy paths, along the golf course were untold numbers of pine trees, big and tall, or short and stubby. The joy I felt in those times, on those adventures, and in life in general, was captured and contained in the smell of the pine. While I was making those long-lasting positive memories the scent of the pine seeped into my subconscious.

    I didn’t notice it much until the last few years. Ironically they have been filled with loss and instability. The world doesn’t feel happy. The world doesn’t feel safe. I’ve lost countless family members and friends. I’ve faced adult choices and adult demons that make me long for the time-consuming school days of 1994.

    It feels like in the last few years the universe has known I’ve needed some peace of mind and thus the smell of the pine came to the forefront. I can be sitting at a park, walking the bike trail, or like today walking across a parking lot to someone’s house and I’ll catch a whiff. Suddenly it’s 1994 again.

    It’s 1994, I’m sixteen, and I can visit any of my grandparents whenever I want. I can pick up the phone and call friends and make plans to ‘hang.’ Or I could grab my bike and ride to someone’s house, or to the corner store, and bask in the fleeting feelings of youth. The future lay out before me like a sunny highway. Nothing seemed uncertain, nothing to fear. Dreams were larger than regret. Living the good old days we didn’t know were good yet.

    This is not an isolated experience. There are other scents that bring back other types of memories. But the pine is the most intense. It sparks a nostalgic flame that I welcome each time. It’s as if the scent of the pine was a fine wine I gathered back then to break out on special occasions.

    Sit back and think. What scents take your mind somewhere? Why do you think that is the case? If you’re wondering how something like memory-inducing scents happen check out this article.

Why Smells Trigger Such Vivid Memories - Discovery.com

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Be sure to check out my website: Christopher Setterlund.com

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In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 25: Top 5 Cape Cod Icons, Restaurant Storytime Pt. 2, How Jolt Cola Fueled My Teenage Years & more!