Life is never easy. There are ups and there are downs. There are side roads that should have been taken and main roads that should have been avoided. There are times when one needs to stop running and times when running is the best thing to do.
Many know I’m going to Australia in December, and if you don’t, you obviously don’t follow me on Twitter or read this blog a lot.
First, background on Australia: I have wanted to do this trip for YEARS, and I mean YEARS. Since I was 18, I’ve been planning and dreaming about this trip. In 2009, my mom passed away. I lived most of 2010 in a haze and in denial that my mom was no longer here. I stopped writing. I stopped living my life. I stopped dreaming. That isn’t me. I write. It’s my release. I live. I like doing things, new things, old things, crazy things. I dream big. I dream for the galaxy and hope to catch a falling star. 2011 rolled around and I decided to start living again. I wanted to make my mom proud of me. Australia it was. She had shared this dream with me, encouraging me to go. When I had committed myself to going, I knew it was going to be expensive but I also knew I had to go. Australia has always pulled at me like Key West, but now more than ever it was tugging at my soul. I took out a loan and bought my air fare, paid deposits on a place to stay, and a campervan to drive around.
Where I am now: I’m paying the loan back while saving money to use while in Australia and for the other money owed to the places to stay and campervan. Add the monthly bills that I have along with paying & saving…saying I’m living paycheck to paycheck is complete understatement. I am living penny to penny. I told someone today that I had $8 to last me until I get paid again on 15th and he didn’t believe me. It’s true. That is living off of 53 cents a day until then. Can I do it? Well, I have to. I don’t have an option.
I chose to make the sacrifices to make a dream come true. I may have to stay in and read or listen to music and write until 2012, but I chose that path. I chose the side road to travel.
As my friend, Rob Grad, said to me “It’ll work out. I’ve always been taken care of when I followed the “pull”. You know? Congrats on taking the leap.”
And he’s absolutely right.
Things happen in life for a reason. God or whatever higher being you believe in doesn’t give you more than you can handle. Every up has a down but every down has an up. I’ll live off of 53 cents a day and I’ll leave the light on. It’s the hope and the dreaming that moves me forward.
And as Beth Hart sings, “Cause I wanna love and I wanna live. Yeah, I don’t know much about it and I never did…And lucky stars, and fairy tales, I’m gonna bathe myself, in a ocean well… Pretty scars from cigarettes… I never will forget – I never will forget.”
I will not forget why I’m doing this. I will not forget what I had to go through to get to Australia.
So, don’t give up on your dreams…leave the light on and continue dreaming
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHWYW6Tw67A?rel=0]