My trip started on March 5th, 2020. The journey began months before my departure. As I continue to listen and grow I realize that this is an experience that I have been building towards my entire life. Recently, it began with a specific moment, an inflection point.
18 months ago my life was perfectly laid out in front of me. I had accomplished many of my goals up until that point and all that was left was to follow through on the final steps of my precise plan. If I were to ask 18 year old me what he felt about my life to that point he would say that I was living my dream.
All the while, there was an inner conflict that was distorting my awareness. I no longer perceived my work as meaningful. I was emotional, quick to anger, and compulsive. I lived my life with an immediate reaction to the stimuli around me. I felt like I was spiraling out of control.
I had a panic attack when I was coaching. Doing what I loved. It wasn’t an isolated incident. It had been building inside of me for years. Afterward, I asked myself, “Is this how I want to live my life?”
At that moment, I committed to asking myself the challenging questions that I was avoiding. I acknowledged that the answers I was seeking may change me for good. I believed that seeking these unknowns was greater than the overwhelming stress I was living with every day. It was September 19th, 2018 and it was the first day of my new journey.
What followed has been the most fulfilling and meaningful 18 months of my life. Through therapy, mindfulness practice, and filling my life with quiet reflective moments, I have learned to listen and believe in myself. To love and to create. To trust and to forgive. To appreciate life’s journey. To integrate my greatest accomplishments with my worst mistakes into a narrative that shows the goodness that defines who I am.
Then somewhere along the way, during a quiet walk, I began to hear the faintest dream calling out to me. A dream that was long forgotten and dismissed. A dream that felt like an impossibility. Immediately, the doubts sprung up. Traveling is too expensive. I can’t quit my job. What about my retirement? Traveling is selfish. I can’t leave my community. What about all the people I support? Traveling will ruin my career. I can’t take a year off. What about grad school? A dream and a challenge that I finally had the tools to realize.
So I invited my dream on my walks. I shared my dream in therapy. I wrote about my dream in my morning pages. I talked through my dream with my friends. I introduced my dream to nature. Little by little the fears were realized, acknowledged, and integrated into my narrative. I investigated my relationship with money, my ideal career, and my role in the lives of others. Each task brought me clarity and a better understanding of who I am and how I want to spend my time. I worked through each fear until there was only one possible option. I purchased my ticket to France.
This trip means many things to me. More than I can write. At its foundation, it is the acknowledgment of a year and a half of painstaking intentional work and that I can use these new practices to learn from any challenging experience. It is proof that I can seek unanswerable questions that lead me to unimaginable experiences that deepen my relationship with myself and others. It signifies the attainment of a dream and the realization that it was never about accomplishing the dream in the first place. It was about the journey the whole time. Here’s to the journey and welcome to the next chapter in my life.
COVID-19 Update: After four weeks in France, with three of those weeks in quarantine, I decided to return home to Chicago. I am now seeking a new kind of journey in Chicago through meaningful work, relationships, and the growth that comes with settling in.
Traveling is still a dream and I hope to resume that part of my journey. I have found it helpful to widen the expanse of my dreaming to encompass the complexity of life. I have many dreams and ways to pursue them. Although there is a limit to what I can do today, I still have the capacity to learn, to grow, and to love. Although that isn't as flashy as gallivanting around the world, that is good enough for me.
- Jake
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