Farewell Summer...

So I haven’t been feeling well lately; this weekend has been spent curled up on my little white couch and catching up on my “Friends” episodes. Saturday night I HAD to get out of my apartment, the cabin fever was causing my friendly walls to slowly close in on me. My remedy was to go for a little stroll around 10 pm. Not a big deal; I am in a very safe, upscale neighborhood in Chicago, and walking out into the crisp fall-like air I was greeted with friendly faces passing in either direction. Not until 5 am does this city really go to bed on the weekends. .. or ever.

I walk towards the lake and keep walking until I find myself in the bright lights of Navy Pier. What a fabulous idea! I will walk down the pier and people watch and finish the night watching the fireworks. This is something I’ve wanted to do lately knowing summer is coming to a close. I have a roof-top deck and easy 5 min access to Navy Pier that displays fireworks twice a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day and I’ve watched them ONCE. ONE TIME all summer did I take the excruciating time and labor to ride my elevator to my deck to watch the sky light up in free entertainment for 15 minutes. 

As I walk through the crowds of tourists holding out cameras and drinking to their hearts content, I’m smiling. What an amazing city. It always re-affirms my love for the city to be surrounded by people who can’t take it for granted. It’s a shame to me, really, that it’s the tourists that really soak in all this city has to offer. They come here and waste not a second in living this city life to the fullest. Each summer, I’ve made a list of things to do in this city, and am proud to say that I normally do pretty well at checking each tour and attraction off come September. But with the hundreds of new things going on each given weekend, I definitely find myself lacking.

 Navy Pier is deceptively long. It takes a good 20-minute walk to get from one end to another. But no worries, it is great people watching and the view of the city skyline gets better and better the further out you go. I see a great spot to perch myself onto for the Saturday night light show but decide against it and keep walking. 10 minutes later, toward the tip of the pier, I approach a great crowd surrounding a stage with live blues and jazz music. You can carry your drink around Navy Pier so it comes to no surprise that the crowd is a little excited.

The band is awesome; playing all the hits that makes your head bob and toes tap. Small, white bulb lights string from the buildings lining the center of the pier to the ends, giving the scene a very old-school carnival like feel. Food venders tint the air with smells of elephant ears and cinnamon roasted almonds. MMMMMM, reminds me of Christmas, when those same treats are sold in all the indoor malls.  I buy a 7-up in a Dixie cup for $3 (rape!) and settle on a railing with the band playing behind me and Lake Michigan and the city skyline in front of me. This is the life.

The fireworks show starts, and with more live music to accompany it! Chicago puts on quite a show and the crowd is thrilled. I am too. My little Saturday night stroll has turned into an effortless evening of entertainment that was waiting for me right outside my door all along.

 I feel sad that it’s almost Labor Day… I feel like summer tricked me. Like she told me to sit in the corner with a blindfold on and wait until she told me to come out. I take the blinds off my eyes and summer’s gone… was she ever really here? Its kind of a bummer since this is the most

amazing city in the summer, and also is the driving reason why any sane person would EVER want to live here year around. Summer is our treat, our champion reward for dealing with the cold, dreary days that will surely follow. Normally summer is SO outrageous that fall is greeted with a huge sigh and a “thank god”..  after three months of non-stop parties and street festivals. But, alas… que sera sera. It is almost fall. Well… we always have next year. And Chicago… your summer is worth the wait.

 

Wild thing

She looked up at me as she closed her lips around the suction straw hanging from the corner of her mouth. We had been talking though out her cleaning appointment when she looks up at me and says as a matter of fact, "... you are a very curious young lady"...

I had never thought of it that way. For the rest of the afternoon and evening I was smiling.. like I had finally figured myself out. I keep trying to find an example of ME; someone who has lived my ideal life, with my ideal outlook and has done it successfully. Someone who has done it and says "its okay, you can do it too". I keep searching for that example, that guideline of my perfect self that I know is set before me, like its some sort of permission slip to move forward. Its like its won't be officially okay in my heart until I KNOW the guidelines are set and boxes carefully colored in. But I can't find it. Its not there. Its not there because that life has not been lived yet.

I've never been one for a conventional life. I've always preferred more color, more adventure, something ... different. If everyone else was doing it (or wearing it).. I made it a point NOT to. It hasn't ever occurred to me that I would be a trail marker, a road carver.. someone making the rules up as I go. But thinking of life that way.. SO freeing, so exhilarating, yet so frightening and earth shattering. I'm stepping into the unknown with no one to hold my hand. Although I know many have gone before me, I still feel like I'm making waves and breaking barriers. .. Because in my head, my world.. I AM.

Most of the fear has left me now. I'm excited and ready to roll... like a caged bird, I'm ready to spread my wings and fly. The anticipation is paramount. I feel like a windup toy, about to break at the seams and catapult forward. 

I HAVE to write in here because I don't have anymore talking to do. My mouth has been running with this dream for years. The time has come for action. 

I'm BoReD. I feel bad saying it living in a city like Chicago. It has lifetimes of potential if I'd just take off my shoes and stay a while. But I can't, I won't. I've got one foot out the door with eyes gazing elsewhere.

I'm not even here.

I just know something will come out of this. This is no little vacation, mark my words. I hope words of my explorations far and wide reach open and yearning ears everywhere. Maybe its not travel that people yearn for, maybe its another dream or demon even, that needs to be tackled. Maybe a passion your life is begging to wrap its days around. But I hope to inspire someone. 

    Passion.

Passion unlived can make you crazy. To live your life without passion is like living without breathing. One couldn't make the assumption that you're truly alive without passion kissing your daily existence. 

I feel like a slug. Laughing, Farrah Fawcett once stated, "If I'm not stimulated, or challenged in life.. then I'm BORED. Its not a good side of me.." Sounds familiar. 

I am a restless wanderer.

I close my eyes to see clearly

I'm following quiet knowings, stepping

into the darkness with faith that there will be something

SOLID... to stand upon

My newest, favorite quote that I'd love to LIVE BY.....

"I'll have poetry in my life, and adventure, and love. Love above all. No..not the artful postures of love, not playful games of love for the amusement of an evening, but love that overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable, 

like a riot in the heart."

- Shakespeare 

I heart Chicago

“Take into account that great love and great achievements..

                             involve great risk”   Dalai Lama

 

  If someone were to ask me, “is this city life you’ve been living in Chicago everything its cracked up to be?” I would smile and answer with a resounding                   

YES..

 

Life here in Chicago is everything I’ve ever wanted and more. It’s HOME to me. Everything about this city I love (well.. besides the winters, which can be quite depressing). I adore everything from the packed and crazy summer street festivals, to the thriving nightlife, to the scrumptious restaurants on every corner. I have changed here. I have grown and morphed into this woman that I can be proud of. I’ve learned street smarts and tasted culture and made new friends and lost new friends. The most important part though, the most amazing gift that life in this city has brought me, is a place that I will hold forever in my heart as the first place that I have truly called HOME. I sit in my apartment as I write this, feeling like this little nook was uniquely carved out just for me. This home is perfect; I could easily be a content homebody in this place. I look forward, every night, to being home.

 

 That YES is will forever reverberate, it echoes and weaves itself through each and every memory that has made up my life here. The hundreds of pictures, the trips and festivities…  my whole life has led up to this moment.

                  And now I’m leaving.

 I find myself wondering and doubting my decision, the questions in my head chasing themselves in circles. “Why would I leave all this? Why do I have to follow this dream, why can’t I be content with staying here?” “why, why? WHY”

 

Because I’m sick of dreaming of what could have been. I’m sick of hearing of people traveling and feeling instant guilt/remorse/jealousy. I feel like chasing down college kids screaming, “STUDY ABROAD!!! STUDDDDYY ABBRROOAADDD!!!!!!!” like a crazy madwoman. This life is no dress rehearsal. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines; I’m willing and ready to take this life for what it is and stop wondering. I want to live the dream, dance through my passions. Four years now. Four years I’ve lived my life with one foot out the door. Four years my intuition, my gut, every day tapping my shoulder asking if I’m ready to listen yet. I’m leaving because if I don’t do this, I’ll never be content. If I don’t do this, I will live the rest of my life with regrets bigger then I’ve ever known. I’m doing this because every cell in my body is telling me I need to go. When you feel something this strong.. you don’t question it. You don’t question it because despite logic and common sense, you know .. you just KNOW its right.

 

Holding on to this dream, it burns, it pains me. It’s a light of fire, its passion and intense love. Every day that passes, this obsession ingrains itself into the fibers of my being. Do you not understand? I feel that one day I’ll look back and feel the same intense pain but at that time it’ll be at the thought that I almost let this slip past my fingertips.

 

Chicago, Oh Chicago. Yes, I’m leaving, but there is great comfort in knowing that Chicago and all its beating authenticity will be            

Right HeRe..   waiting for me..

 

If I shall ever return….

 

 

Home Sweet Chicago.. It's time to go now. This is meant to be. This is in my stars. I am supposed to go. And I won’t come back. This is not scary. This is exhilarating. This dream that for years has scared me to death, will bring me back to life.

sweet melodies

A journal I wrote last March before my 25^th birthday

 

Who are you?

What do you want from me?

 

You are the quiet knowings, a soft whisper that I can’t ignore

 

When my feet become settled, my body comfortable in warmth

My heart flutters, unsettled

The ears of my intuition tweak

And I hear you once again

 

Visions of far away places,

Open fields, colorful cultures

Grand schemes and surpassing love

Wisdom

 Strength

 

Darker voices rebel in fear

Fear

Fear

 

“what if…”                                    “I can’t…”

                        “I shouldn’t …”

 

I know better

Some distant part comforts me

In knowing those darker voices aren’t true

… it wouldn’t be that way…

 

but its all I can think

     more fear

The strength of which suffocates my dreams

 

… until the next quiet hour

when sweet whispers sing soft melodies

of thick accents and salty ocean air…..                 far away

 

Someday… my desire will continue to grow

Like fire in the abunance of oxygen

It will roar and with a burning strength I shall step into the unknown

 

For if it would reverse

Have pitty on me dear friend

For then I will have neglected my heart, my one true love,

Quieted those true voices

Something within me will have died

 

And I would have allowed it.

 

Fear is a dangerous enemy.

 

A New Beginning!

Today I bought a new notebook. It’s a rose color with 200 small, blank pages attached. I have it set in front of me and hope with all I am that someday those pages tell of grand adventures and new friends made.  Some pages will have directions, some will have the correct pronunciation of helpful foreign words, and others’ will contain names and emails of new companions. I hope this notebook is filled with future memories of a trip of a lifetime; as opposed to a new $2.43 purchase that will join my other “travel dream” items, hidden and dust speckled, all placed in some conspicuous spot that won’t remind me of a life never lived.

 

I write these things as if some large life circumstance beyond my control is holding me back, like something serious could prevent me from leaving this amazing life I have made for myself to pursue my other passion.  I suppose this isn’t so far from the truth, because a great adversary, fear, has held me back for years.

 

I don’t understand how some distant emotion such as fear or worry would ever hold me back, it hasn’t held me back from doing anything before.. but I suppose this dream is unlike the others. Moving 2 hours away is different from leaving the country and catapulting into a completely new day.. one that most of the world has not seen yet. 

 

I’ve been talking of this dream for years, but this time feels different. I’m not setting a goal of leaving forever… just 6 months. And before I go I get to hang with friends and family at home and enjoy a relaxing summer. And when I come back I’ll “wing it”. Probably chill and decompress after my long-lived adventure, work on my book, and then head back to the city of my dreams… Chicago.  Every time my heart starts to whine about how comfortable I am now and how amazing this city is and how crazy I am to leave… I am comforted knowing that I’m just leaving on an adventure to live my huge dreams… live in Australia, see the world and write a book. Then Chicago will be here waiting for me to pick up where I left off. … to continue to live the big city, glamorous life and still in my 20s to top it all off. Why would I not go? It’s different this time. It just feels…. Right.

 

So I’m starting a blog. What is a blog anyway? Some super special public diary for everyone to critique?  How about an incredibly narcissistic outlet for people to unleash their thoughts and ideas out into the world? Well, I’m starting this one for a little of both reasons.  I want feedback on my writing skills, also I would like to find my writing style so that when I am abroad I can do this naturally, whereas now it feels like I’m in seventh grade again, singing in front of church on Sunday but forgot the words mid-chorus.  Yikes. But I want to write, and when I’m in Bangkok on a TukTuk I swear this blog will pick up the pase… paise…. Pace. Oh… and maybe I can improve on my spelling.  This entire page looks like it’s bleeding…. Red scribblely lines peppering every sentence…

 

I want to eventually keep a continual theme of two main topics; my adventures in foreign lands… and Passion. Passion is what gets you there, its what keeps you alive, keeps you hoping and thriving and fighting for this life that sometimes feels a little like a cheat. It makes it all worth it. I am restless. I have a passion for adventure and culture. I am a travel channel junky and am ready to experience it all first hand. 

 

I went to Mexico this past spring of 2009, and something sparked; something awoke.  I realized then that somehow a level of settling for “a life less than” slithered in unnoticed.  Life in Chicago is everything I’ve ever hoped for and more. But I have unlived dreams that were slowly being let go because logic said so. I didn’t realize, I had let myself forget what it felt like to click in place with life. So here I am, preparing to take off head first for a dream that has more questions unanswered then I’d like to acknowledge. But when it is all being said and done, I hope to talk to people and take notes from all over the world, on how they are living their life fearlessly with passion. Or better yet… how they are living life in spite of fear. Isn’t that what courage is? “Being afraid and leaping regardless”. 

 

 “ Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist….

                          Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing … “

 

                                                            Helen Keller

 

So here goes. 

 

Goal : Move to Michigan June 2010

Leave for Europe September 2010

 

Amen.  (“so be it”)

 JK