Some People Never Get on the Train

One of my favorite things about my dad is that every once in a while, he’ll say something with COMPLETE sincerity that sounds like a person accidentally reopening the door to a life they never fully stopped imagining for themselves.

Recently, we were watching one of Bertie Gregory’s nature documentaries together, and halfway through a segment about bees, my dad suddenly looked over and said, completely serious, “What if I became a beekeeper?”

And with him, there’s always this tiny split second afterward where you genuinely wonder:

WAIT.

Would you???

Because my dad has always been like that. Growing up, there was always some version of another life floating around him. Sometimes he talked about wanting to be a vet. Other times, some kind of explorer or National Geographic person traveling through remote places, discovering things, and talking about animals with the kind of excitement most adults slowly lose somewhere between bills and responsibilities, and becoming “practical.”

And honestly, I think being raised around someone like that changes you. Even if they never fully become the thing they imagined, they still teach you that curiosity matters. That possibility matters. That dreaming is not embarrassing. Which is probably why there’s a scene in Blue Sky Studios’ Robots that has emotionally stayed lodged inside my brain for YEARS.

Rodney Copperbottom is standing at the train station with this tiny suitcase, trying to leave for Robot City because he wants to become an inventor. His mom is panicking because she wants him to stay home, where things are safe, and familiar, and realistic, while Rodney keeps insisting that if he leaves, maybe he can become somebody. Maybe he can build something meaningful. Maybe he can help his family.

But the part of the scene that matters most isn’t Rodney. It’s his dad. Because his dad looks at him and realizes something heartbreaking in real time: his son is standing at the exact same crossroads he once stood at himself.

Suddenly, his dad tells him that when he was younger, he wanted to be a musician. He says his father worried it wouldn’t make money, so instead he got “refitted” into becoming a dishwasher. Then he says, “If I could do it over again, I would follow my dream.”

And right after that, he buys Rodney the train ticket. That part really gets me ... because Rodney probably never gets on that train if his dad doesn’t hand him permission first.

So many people spend their lives emotionally sitting at that station. Not even on the train. Just sitting there staring at the tracks, wondering whether they’re allowed to want the thing they want. Wondering whether they’re talented enough. Serious enough. Special enough. Wondering whether trying and failing would be more painful than never trying at all.

And honestly, I think that’s the real “what if?” most people are carrying. Not “What if I succeed?”

But:

• What if I try with my whole heart and still disappoint everyone?

• What if the dream isn’t enough?

• What if I let people down?

• What if I let myself down?

Because the complicated thing about inheriting belief from somebody else is that it can feel both beautiful and heavy at the same time.

When someone you love looks at you and says, “You’ve got greatness in you,” part of you feels inspired. Another part of you suddenly feels responsible for carrying not only your own dream, but theirs, too.

My aunt Sheila had already built this extraordinary career by the time I was growing up, so when she used to tell me at the dinner table that I’d become a CEO someday, it didn’t feel hypothetical. And as a professionally trained hoop jumper, hearing something like that felt AMAZING. Like wow. Somebody I admired deeply and had fulfilled her dream seemed to believe I could become a person I hadn’t even figured out how to imagine yet. Someone believes I’m capable of important things. And honestly, I loved it. I loved feeling seen like that.

But I also think there’s a strange pressure that comes from growing up around people who feel larger than life to you. Because when someone has built extraordinary things, possibility stops feeling theoretical. It’s not some abstract motivational quote floating around online anymore. It’s sitting across from you at the dinner table.

Which is inspiring. But also quietly terrifying.

Because part of you starts wondering whether you’ll ever become the version they already seem to see in you. Whether you’ll live up to the belief. Whether one day they’ll realize they overestimated you somehow. And I think when you grow up around ambitious, curious people, eventually their belief becomes part of your inner voice too. Sometimes in a beautiful way. Sometimes in a heavy one.

Watching Robots as a kid almost felt unfair sometimes because I already knew what it felt like to grow up around people who made impossible things feel weirdly possible. I already knew what it felt like to look at someone the way Rodney looks at Bigweld. Like they existed in this larger-than-life category in your brain where ambition stopped feeling theoretical and started feeling tangible.

And I think that’s why the movie stays with me emotionally even now, because underneath all the jokes and machinery and early-2000s animation, it’s secretly about people passing belief forward to each other.

Rodney watches Bigweld and starts believing he could build things too. Rodney’s dad turns that belief into action by buying him the ticket out. And later, when Bigweld loses faith in himself, Rodney ends up returning the favor by reminding him who he used to be.

The belief keeps moving forward from person to person, one human being handing another permission to keep going before the world slowly talks them out of it.

And honestly, the older I get, the more I think the people who change your life are usually the ones who help you keep your relationship with possibility alive a little longer before practicality slowly sands it down.

Now, I don’t even think practicality is the main villain most of the time.

Sometimes, practicality is love. Sometimes practicality is rent. Sometimes practicality is immigrating to another country, or supporting a family, or choosing stability because other people are depending on you to survive.

Herb Copperbottom doesn’t abandon music because he’s weak. He sets it down because responsibility entered the room.

That’s what makes the train station scene so emotional. Not because it’s about recklessly chasing dreams no matter the consequences, but because it’s about someone who understands exactly what it costs to let a dream go and still chooses, somehow, not to pass that fear entirely onto his son.

Because eventually, everybody gets tired in some way. Everybody gets scared. Everybody becomes more realistic than they once were. But every once in a while, someone looks at another person and says, in one way or another:

I think there’s something special in you. You should go see for yourself.

And maybe that’s the real inheritance people leave behind. Not titles or achievements or status, but the ability to make somebody else finally think that maybe they should get on the train after all, even if they’re still standing at the station holding the ticket with slightly shaky hands.