On the road again…

Have you ever looked at all those kids who get the whole summer vacation off and became insanely jealous of them? I don’t want to be a kid again, or live through my school years one more time, but I wish summer vacation like that was still a part of my adult life. Recently I did have some major life changes, and I was actually able to have a full summer vacation though. And it was glorious!

Full of camping, family time, friends time, road tripping, Nutella s’mores (seriously if you haven’t tried them you should!) and of course a ton of pictures. As the summer is drawing to a close, and I’m going back through editing and sorting all these memories, I can’t help but be so thankful I got to have this time free. Even out of the situation it came from, I can still be happy about it.

And there’s the lesson, I am happy about it. At the end of the road, I won’t be remembering all the time I thought I ‘needed’ to spend on work that wasn’t recognized, wasn’t really that important, wasn’t saving the world - I will be remembering summers like this one. All the laughs, the visits, the talks, the cooking, the sights, the drive. And now I am pursuing my own dream with the freedom that change gave me. I shudder to think about going back to that, so I drive forward and keep going. I want to have another summer like this one, next year and the year after that. If not, I want to be doing what I love in the summer months. What make me happy and fulfilled. And not wasting away in a cubicle at the ‘safe’ job.

A lot of people are still in those doldrums of working at something that ultimately is not what makes them happy. Still stuck in something that the fear of the risk, and the leap of faith it would take to change their happiness, keeps them there forever. For me, I was pushed off that ledge - I didn’t get a second to face the fear of taking that step. I am grateful for it now though, because I don’t know if I would have taken that step of my own free will. And that’s the sad part, you will never know your true strength until you take that first step.

Throughout this summer, and on that thought, I had a brilliant speech given by Jim Carrey to a 2014 graduating class at MUM running through my head. Basically on repeat, it was a brilliant speech and one line in particular has always hit home with me. 

‘So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it.’

Well my universe gave me a boot to the butt - I’ll be damned if I don’t accept it and go running into what I truly love to do, with complete faith that everything will be just fine.