Live Your Dream.

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When I speak of my travels, I can expect the same list of inquiries: "Aren't you afraid?”; "Was it amazing?”; and "What were you traveling for?". Perhaps due to constant repetition, my answers to these questions have grown vague and routine: "Never”; "It was amazing”; and “Just to travel." But lately I got to thinking about that last question… What was I traveling for? Why travel at all?

I realized I was searching. Searching for meaning, for raw experience, for beauty, for love, for courage, for home, for presence, and for myself. 

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Settling back in my hometown for a spell has spurred an epiphany: That all those things I have been searching for have been within me all along. Ralph Waldo Emerson says it best, “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."

I am both plagued and blessed with a gypsy soul and that thing they call wanderlust, in its truest form. I have climbed jagged peaks, I have spent weeks at a time living on bare necessities in the wild, I have hitchhiked across foreign countries, and I have faced deep loneliness amongst dense crowds. But when it comes right down to it, the hardest part for this restless girl is to live a profound, meaningful life in a small, familiar town called home. 

I am beginning to reassess and revalue my ideas of adventure, aimless wandering, and excitement of new sights. I am now focused on expanding my ability to bring adventure into my everyday life; to wander down roads and trails I have seen trod countless times and still find something new to appreciate every trip; to experience excitement in all the simple pleasures of life.

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So I stand before you, stripped bare of all stories and badges earned on my exciting travels, just me. Your everyday human, daring you to join me in making our lives a story worth telling. Let’s try it - simply by living presently, lovingly, and inspiringly every single day. I challenge you to find the beauty within; and I promise, as within, so without. 

Dream your life…live your dream.