If you had the chance to leave everything behind – and go on an adventure of a lifetime – would you?
Would you live your dream or just dream your life?
That is a question I had to ask myself a few times in my life.
So here is a little something about me:
Being a dual citizen, I always dreamed of going to New York.
I saw my first Broadway Show at the age of 7. The magic of the stories, diving into other people’s lives, the music, the lights… it changed my whole world – so much that it was my dream to be on Broadway myself.
Back in my home country, in Germany, I studied musical theater and when I got my diploma in 2013, an opportunity opened up.
My father said: Now is your chance! I will support you if you want to go to New York.
What a chance!
What a choice to make!
To dive into something completely new, move into a city with complete strangers – or stay where I was at, in my small village in Germany.
To leave everything behind I called my home, a safe environment, where everyone knew me – or to move into a huge city where I was anonymous and walk a path of my own.
A part of me was about to bail out of the opportunity, but my rebel soul and heart shouted at me:
If you don’t do it now, you will never leave here! You never wanted to be here in the first place! Go and do what you always wanted!
So I chose – a life of adventure.
I took my chances and left my home country after 28 years of living in Europe.
It was exciting and scary at the same time, but I had nothing to lose!
Due to being in the right place at the right time, I made friends and even got a place to live in (a room in the community/pastor’s house by all means), I found lots of friends, my best friend from Chicago moved to New York (we were talking about living in New York City since we were 16) and in 2015 I met my life-partner.
The most wonderful man and most exciting being I could imagine to be with.
In 2017, 3.5 years after my move to New York City, I moved in with him.
We shared the dream of traveling, of making music together and at the end of that year we made had a mother big decision to make.
Stay or live our dream and travel.
We chose to live our dream, something deep inside us was clear:
We got a trailer, sold or gave away what we couldn’t bring along, and traveled across the country.
We explored places like Sedona and Mount Shasta – Roswell – Yosemite – the Grand Canyon and so many more.
But even though we had dreamed about it, it took the courage and readiness to leave everything we had behind, including his job.
His true dream was to create his own songs, to perform and sing them together with me and this is something we are still doing today.
My partners Songs speak of awakening, rebellious acts of growth and transformation and I am grateful to be with him on this journey of Music and Adventure.
All I know is that whenever I said yes to big decisions like these, I was guided and cared for.
Life is always full of choices.
With all this said and my story told, it is your turn now to answer for yourselves:
If you had the chance to leave everything behind – and go on an adventure of a lifetime – would you?
La Ara
La Ara Blog 