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”)
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