Most of my life I was happy to stay in my safe and familiar bubble--well, not happy I suppose, rather I was just trained that way my entire youth. Until about a year and a half ago, when a friend put the idea into my head to move to a new country and start an unknown adventure. This was unheard of for me. In fact, I specifically remember thinking once when I was a kid, "I don't understand travellers. There's everything you need in this country. Why would anyone ever want to leave?" Not one of my proudest moments I admit, but hey, I was pretty brainwashed back then.
WELL, MAYBE NOT FOR THAT. BUT SOMETIMES.
So five months ago, I hopped a plane and have been living in Chile since. I did an entrepreneurship/life education program for two months which was an amazing experience of a lifetime and I met new friends from all over the world. However, I ended up spending the better part of it depressed as I was still processing all of the emotional aftermath of everything that had led up to my big decision.
After that, I went to a Spanish immersion school here in Viña del Mar, and met many more interesting people from all over the world. There I found people with shared interests in the things that I care most about which is always something to find solace in, especially since I hadn't found much of an opportunity to do so during the program. (Exosphere is full of passionate people and I love everyone there for different reasons--but I often felt lost as a musician amongst a crowd of start-up entrepreneur-minded people.) Remembering why I came here in the first place, I decided to finally let myself relax and think about music instead of continuously worrying about the next plan. After that conscious decision, I started really enjoying life again.
I've really enjoyed not working for this long, but at the same time I know I'm also avoiding thinking about it too, because that means the stress of looking for work in a foreign country, thinking about Visas, the possibility that I may need to travel back to Canada, and just a bunch of things I'd rather not think about. When I left, one of my good friends told me something that really stuck in my head which was to remember to stay true to myself, and that is why I am not rushing on making a plan. The whole point of coming here, the whole point of Exosphere, the whole point of learning Spanish, meeting people, everything--was part of the adventure of just doing something more spontaneous and testing my own confidence in myself to achieve what I want to do.
For me, that is making music. The very idea of going back to regular habits of work and worrying about plans makes me cringe because it contradicts everything that drove me here. It's quite an emotional subject for me, actually. I've had this sense of urgency building inside me for the last couple of years. It came to a head when I bought my plane ticket. Leaving the country was like a rite of passage. I needed to go. I needed a change. I needed to finally do what I fucking wanted: Create and turn imagination into reality.
PICTURED ABOVE: BURNINATING...EVERYTHING.
I never expected my lack of motivation upon arrival, although in hindsight I suppose I should have, seeing as it was such a time of upheaval for me. Now that I'm feeling more balanced again, I'm thinking about how I can create the reality I want. Ideas are flying around left, right and centre and to be perfectly honest I just can't decide on what I want to do most first. Now that I've tasted adventure, it's like a memory trigger for amnesia: I remember everything I've always wanted. Like I found the key to an old diary full of dreams that had been hidden away and long forgotten, and awakened the fire that had been in my heart from the very beginning.
Despite growing up with a mother that tried to convince me getting married and having a family was the ultimate end goal in life, I always knew I was destined for far more amazing things--to bend rules and break down boundaries. I became restless in my only long-term relationship. At the time I thought it was mostly because his ideals didn't match up with mine--or rather, those of my mother's--and in the back of my mind I resented that. But really what the biggest problem was for me is that he just didn't have passion; even less the confidence to act on it.
I remember one time having something snap in my brain when he talked about wanting to buy a house one day--a concept which has always been something that has turned me off before I even understood why. I don't remember exactly how the argument went, but I remember blurting exasperatedly, "I don't want a fucking house, I want a -life-." Though I was dealing with a lot of PTSD at the time and didn't -look- like a motivated person, inside I still had all of those passions, dreams and goals even though I wasn't aware of what they were yet. He didn't. He told me he was happy to do what he liked doing just as a casual hobby, work at a job he could "tolerate," and live out his days in the same dinky retirement town that made my brain feel like it was fermenting with every additional second I stayed living there. Truly, it is a place where dreams go to die. Long story short (sort of), I moved to Vancouver upon inspiration from a friend, and we separated that year.
In Vancouver I worked inside a major department store in a natural health section for three and a half years. Honestly if it wasn't for my amazing staff I would have left far earlier, because that place reminded me of everything that was the opposite of what I valued. I looked at the ladies working as secretaries for 30+ years and thought to myself, "This couldn't possibly be what people strive to achieve. I mean, does anyone really say, 'When I grow up I want to be a department store manager'?" I swore the place always had a musty odor of death about it, what with the regular senior crowd that frequented there. But it wasn't the scent of rapid brain cell decay meeting my nostrils each morning that made me feel like I was working in a morgue; it was the energy there. I'd watch hordes old people get excited about getting once-a-month 10% discounts or get angry if they didn't and wonder--is this really what most people let their lives become?
SURPRISINGLY, I DID NOT MAKE THIS.
I would watch people shop for furniture with the bitter taste of disgust in my mouth. I have never wanted to have the kind of life where I would ever have to go shopping for fabric swatches. This was one of the same reasons I got fed up with the dance troupe I was a part of in Retirementville until I finally quit because of it--I just couldn't understand how anyone could be that apathetic or self-loathing to continue doing a 9-5 job that drove them crazy and the only thing they had that made them feel free was just treated as a hobby. Inevitably, they brought that compulsive need to have control to the group and it was impossible to ever have harmony amongst everyone during our militantly organized 3x/week schedule.
The point of mentioning all of this is to point out the huge contrast to the environment I'm in now. The game changed for me when I finally started to meet a new crowd in Vancouver. People that actually made sense, that gave a shit about something, and who also understood rules were irrelevant. I distinctly remember a moment of a conversation with one of my good friends from there, not long after we'd met. I was telling him the very same story about my frustration with ex-Unmotivating, and I'll never forget his perfect response:
"So...what you really wanted was a co-explorer."
Never had a word rung more true in my mind before. "YES," I emphatically agreed. "Exactly." It was the word I had been missing all those years earlier that explained what I had always hoped to find: Someone who is just "crazy" enough to understand I was never actually crazy; who shares my rebellious, norm-breaking way of thinking; my affinity for silliness; my indescribable love for music (a necessity); who understands what having passion truly means...and who would be ready and willing to go have all sorts of amazing, spontaneous adventures with me. Most people would say those things seem crazy to want, but are they really? I don't think so. At least so says that idealist, "active romantic" part of me.
BEST QUOTE EVER.
So here I am now, not knowing what's going to happen next, and actually enjoying that fact for the first time in my life. I have always tried to plan and organize things myself because I believed that no one would ever care about what you care about as much as you do. But, if you're going to build something amazing, you can't do it yourself. You need a team, a support system if you will, so that you can focus your strengths and allow others to do the same. This is one of the important lessons Exosphere places emphasis on. This is what my next ongoing goal has become: To discover those people in my life that are going to help rocket things exponentially for all involved--who ARE "crazy" enough to take risks and come along for the adventure.
Travelling to Chile made me realize that contradictory to the tragically misinformed Little Me, there is so much more to see in the world and I remember now after all these years that I've always had the burning desire to see it. And with every passing day my determination to make music and creativity a permanent, prominent part of my life grows stronger. Now is the time to figure out how to do both of those things, and that will be the next story chapter. I don't know where I'm going to be, what I'm going to be doing, or who I'm going to be doing it with, but I have a strong sense that amazing opportunities are awaiting me and I have barely even scratched the surface of awesomeness. More and more great things to come. I can't wait. ^_^
xoxo, Me
♫ ♪ ♫ ♪
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