Back in high school, I started becoming aware of a love to learn about others and understand life from their perspective. This desire manifested itself in the medley of foreign languages I decided to take, although I was not required to study so many. I loved it. I couldn’t get enough. I would study dictionaries and easily be 2-3 lessons ahead of the class. Between middle and high school, I studied Spanish for 5 years, French for 2 years, and then Latin for one year. Learning about the different cultures, the different worlds – fascinated me. I dreamt of traveling to Spain and across Europe.
I’ve had a few opportunities over the years to travel, including my very first flight and sight of the west coast of the US just last year, in 2015. (In like, to date, my mother has not yet flown in a plane. I enjoy breaking barriers. This is important to me).
Never had I decided to book a flight to a country I’d never been before, and even better, stay there for 2 weeks without knowing precisely what I was going to do or where I would stay the entire time. Oh yeah, and go solo. When I got a notification that my flight cost I had been watching had dropped by about $60, I took it as a sign, held my breath, and pushed the electronic button that would charge my credit card and seal my fate. I freaked out with excitement for a bit, and then just about forgot about it for a few months.
I wanted to experience what I’ve always imagined. I wanted adventure.
I wanted to experience another world in the most real way possible. So, I loaded up my backpack with what I hoped would be enough clothing and such for two weeks and went.
Now, here was the extra blessing for me – Costa Rica was an amazing pilot test. I have some wonderful friends that moved there a year ago. They picked me up from the airport and I spent my first 4 days close to them. I got the opportunity to get acclimated before traveling onward.
It was incredible to see them again after a year, and how awesome to get the low-down on the culture and things I should know to help me for my travel there.
The key point that I wanted to make in this post is that I’ve always wanted to do this and I didn’t know all the details, but I went ahead and took steps in faith towards it.
Do you have dreams from years ago you have yet to act on? Write them down. Putting these things on paper begins to give them form. Then, I encourage you to just allow yourself to daydream and wonder: what’s something I could do to make this a reality? What is one simple step?
You’re worth seeing your dreams come to reality.
aubreyeicher 