Why I’m Doing This
Shot by Austin Dalley on Canon EOS M50
They may not say it out loud, but I can see it in their eyes, through the layers of glass screens. How is he traveling so much? What does he even do? And I get it. I stopped oversharing my life in the sphere of social media years ago, so without context, I know I look like a rich boy galavanting around the Mediterranean without motivation or reason. So I suppose now is a better time than any to explain the why and the what I’m doing in the first place.
I don’t believe I was ever meant to be there in the Unites States. I remember growing up in small town America and always feeling like something was…off. The way people interacted, bought food, traveled, entertained themselves, had something about it that I felt inexplicably separate from. This feeling of difference only increased as I got older, but I tried to ignore it. Because it’s a ridiculous thing to fixate on, right? Why wasn’t I satisfied with this life like everyone around me? Sure I can read my little books and have my fantasies of somewhere across an ocean. But this was the real world. Those dreams of being anyone else, anywhere else, weren’t logical or possible. They were just pipe dreams, and I had a life to live. So I tried to live it.
And I did the traditional path. I did my time in the lackluster American school system, stressed myself getting into a big university, got the degree, inevitably got a job not in my field to support myself. Just like so, so many souls in America, in this world, have done. But a flame still burned in me. For something greater, for adventure, for the place that I was meant to be, wherever that even was. Still I tried to keep it at bay, and satisfy my lusts in other ways. I worked out. I worked more. I moved to New York City, thinking that maybe life in the great American city would be enough to satisfy my urge for more.
While New York City was so many things, vibrant, electric, exhausting, it wasn’t the place I was meant to be. But it was invaluable as it was in that city that I started to become my true self, shedding away all the trappings of the American dream that I tried for so long to embody. My sexuality, my fashion, my presence, were all enlightened. And it was there where my inner flames burst into a roaring fire. This life here wasn’t for me. It never was. I was meant for something greater, across the ocean, surrounded in languages and aging architecture and history and art and…life. Real life.
On a fateful day in that tiring city, I came home from work and knew what I had to do. I went to my laptop, booked a one way flight to Paris two months away, and that was it. I didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t have a plan. But something deep inside me just told me that this was what I had to do. And for the first time, in a long time, I listened to the voices that spoke to me in my dreams.
Ever since then, I’ve been on a personal odyssey to live in Europe, and accomplish it doing work that I love, as a writer, artist, and creator. That first attempt in 2019 certainly wasn’t easy; arriving in France with less than $3000 to my name, I had to make some sacrifices. I worked as an au pair in the south of France. Over the winter I worked at a hotel in Morocco. I almost worked at a hostel in Tel Aviv, but the world soon closed and I had to return to the United States. Yet throughout all the changes in circumstances, the nations, the lack of money, a global pandemic, I kept working, kept writing, and kept creating. Even at times when I didn’t know when I would go back, and when I really wanted to just give up. Because deep in me I knew that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.
After a year of working as a bartender in consistently uncertain times, the pandemic started to lighten, and I knew it was time to go chase the life I yearn. With the money I saved, I was on my way again.
So here I am. Traveling again, writing more, on my eternal quest to make a living, make a life, doing what I love. Perhaps it’s unrealistic. Perhaps it’s impractical. But I’ve already spent too many years going with the motions as everyone else. And while I maybe had more money and stability in those times, I always felt a lacking of experience, of life. We only have one chance on this earth, so why would we not at least try for the life we’ve always wanted? Why not chase the dreams? Fifty years from now, when you reflect on it all, would you rather know that you at least gave that existence a chance? Or are you okay being filled with regrets of what could have been?
I have so many ideas, and even more goals. Often I used to wonder how, when, I’ll accomplish them all. But I don’t anymore. Because really, why does the “how” matter? Why must we search for all the answers of the fates immediately? Why do we try to make five year and ten year and twenty year plans, when instead we could just work on our visions and let life happen? So many aspects of our futures are unpredictable and out of our control. All we can control is how we carry ourselves through it all. Which is why now, I’m ready for anything. Give me the adventure, the drama, the action. Let me float around the Aegean sea for twenty years if I have to. If thats what it takes for my odyssey to give me a home, then so be it. Just know that the whole way through, I’ll be writing it down here, for the world to read. Because we all need a little something to spark the little burning flames into fiery, passionate lives. And I hope that my words can be that for all of you.
Welcome to my world, the one that I’m building, and I hope you enjoy the stories that will come along the way. I know I will.
Shot by Austin Dalley on Canon EOS M50