When McConaughey is in his mid-30s, he decides that the time has come to focus on his lifelong goal of becoming a father. While he has had fulfilling romantic experiences, he has not yet met the woman he wants to be his life companion or the mother of his children. He has a wet dream where he sees himself as an 88-year-old bachelor in a suburban neighborhood that abounds in mothers driving with their four children. He takes the dream as “a spiritual sign, a message to surrender, to quit trying so intentionally to find the perfect woman for me, and rather, concede to the natural selection process of finding her, her finding me, or not” (Location 2460). As soon as he stops looking for his dream woman, he meets Camila, a Brazilian model and the woman he has been with for 15 years upon writing. Since meeting her, he has desired to be with no other woman; he knows the mermaid he saw in the Amazon River was a representation of her.

Camila and McConaughey decide to start a family and they name their first son Levi. When a family emergency draws them back to Texas, Camila realizes that McConaughey wants to move there for the familiarity and to be close to his ageing mother.