As I write this post, I’m somewhere between Buenos Aires and Vancouver… after almost four years away from Vancouver, I feel as though I’m finally coming home.
Leaving Buenos Aires is bittersweet, I love the city—the food, the energy, the design, the tree lined streets, the mishmash of styles, the fashion, the café culture, and the weather. I will miss it dearly.
However, I know it is time I get started on the rest of my life.
The things that cause you to take pause are funny. This morning, it was Happy Feet 2. As the in-flight movie drew to a close, I reflected on our Antarctic trip, which led me to reflect on our three months in Buenos Aires, which led me to reflect on the other amazing things I’ve had the opportunity to do so far. And I was struck with a sense of wonder. A sense of “is this really my life?”
As I embark on this next adventure—one that involves a lot less adventuring and a lot more building—I realize that I’m petrified.
When we decided to take this path, and when I first wrote about quitting my job to follow my dreams, I had a good idea of what our first steps (i.e., our three months in BA) would look like… after that, it got a little foggy. But, ready or not, today I’m flying into that fog.
You know those foggy mornings where you just want to curl up in bed with a coffee and a good book and ignore all the pressing things that you have to do? I hate to admit that a (big) part of me wants to do just that (in the form of a beach hut in Thailand, or a big trip to India). But when I look at the things I want to do with my life, I realize that right now, beach huts and backpacking isn’t going to get me there.
I want run my own business(es). I want to do that for the rest of my life. I want to be a wedding photographer. An awesome one. I want to be successful. I want to be incredibly busy. I want my clients to love me and to recommend me to all their friends. And to get there I need to start doing the things along this path that scare me.
I’ve been telling myself that I started doing these things on December 15, but I realized this morning that that’s not really true. Sure, I took the big (and difficult) step of leaving my job. But since then I’ve been working on all the easy stuff, while all the hard stuff—all the important stuff—was relegated to the land of “I’ll deal with that when I get to Vancouver”.
Well, guess what? That day is today.
Welcome back :)
You’ll navigate the foggy days and in due time the sun will shine through and clear the fog away :-)
Time to do one (BIG) thing that scares you and to do it every day for a while. I know you’re gonna do well. And I’m already ready to recommend you to other brides to be :-)
Heather, you have no idea how much I needed this today. Great suggestion. Now I need to think about my first big thing! My biggest hurdle: we’re sort of stuck on the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs right now, and are obsessed with finding housing. Making it difficult to even think about anything else :)