how to live your dreams (part 1 of 2)
on fear, friends, and boarding your boat when it comes
Step one: take a chance.
This is obviously easier said than done. I haven’t determined whether it’s more painful to seek opportunity and find nothing, silently yearning for weeks, months, or years; or to see opportunity clearly before you and do nothing, watching it pass like a boat you’ve willingly missed.
In the latter case, there are plenty of reasons to be hesitant. ‘Where’s the boat headed to, anyway? How do I know it’ll take me where I want to go?’
You might chastise yourself, standing motionless on the shore, but what if the boat is destined to sink? Worse, what if it isn’t?
Some dreams are so sizable and intimidating that living them seems out of the question; feasible more as an escapist fantasy, a skit, a joke.
For my friend Lily and I, our dreams began with a joke. If I moved to Dublin, she would sleep on the floor of my apartment.
“I’ll be there for a few days. Or weeks, or months or something,” she said.
We both laughed. This was our first meeting in months; an afternoon in early November, the day I moved to Colorado. I’d just come from visiting Ireland for the first time on a two-week road trip, and had newly set my intentions on moving to Dublin to attend Trinity. I’d quickly fallen in love with the campus after touring its grand library, and then with the city itself after meeting its wonderful people.
Lily shared in this enthusiasm; of all the European cities she visited with her cousin (and my good friend) Gemma on vacation years prior, she’d loved Dublin the most.
Lily and I were on friendly terms through Gemma, but our friendship would blossom after discovering our lives were knit in several identical patterns. We were both born in California, had strained relationships with our mothers, stayed in long-term relationships we weren’t necessarily happy with, and ended these relationships within six months of each other.
Where I’ve committed to writing as my artistic medium of choice, Lily’s dedicated to film. Her passion matches her talents: when I volunteered on the set of a short film she directed for her finals, I watched her orchestrate a crew of her film major friends like a maestro, carefully measuring each scene’s ambiance in light, sound, and props. It was the first time I’d witness how artfully she could construct a reality from her mind’s eye alone.
Once February came, I’d knock on opportunity’s door and officially apply to Trinity, though I didn’t have high hopes. Gemma’s dad (Lily’s uncle) sat with me on their family’s living room couch as I reviewed my application. I read aloud my ‘personal statement’, trying not to cringe at the way I marketed myself for a slot in a twenty-person program.
Bill said it sounded great. I didn’t believe him, and he could tell.
“You’re scared,” he remarked.
I laughed. “Yeah, definitely.”
He shook his head. “You’re not scared about whether you’ll get in. You’re scared you’ll have to scramble to make things work when that acceptance letter comes.”
I hadn’t let myself consider acceptance yet; it felt like I’d be jinxing something. Still, I was so fixated on estimating the chances of my acceptance (how many times can one Google the acceptance rates of their dream school?) that I hadn’t considered the opportunity’s obligations. How much would a ticket for this boat ride cost?
I’d never taken out student loans before, having saved up for years to pay my undergrad tuition of pocket – I wouldn’t be able to swing it this time around. I’d moved across cities, even across states, but never across an ocean. Better yet, Dublin was in a housing crisis, and I’d have to navigate it alone.
Maybe not, I thought. Lily and I kept our joke running from winter to spring: now if I got accepted, she wouldn’t just sleep on my floor, but would move to Dublin with me.
Through ongoing jokes, we tailored our lives to idyllic proportions. I insisted she’d meet a perfect Irish guy and live in Ireland full-time; she said we’d travel to Paris and Rome and London on holidays; we waxed poetic about becoming Dubliners who knew the city like the back of our hands. The more we discussed this world, even in jest, the more we wanted to live in it.
As Bill foresaw, my acceptance letter (email) finally arrived, throwing a concrete slab of reality onto a sunny May morning to both thrill and terrify me. I was handed an outline of the year to come, and was finally tasked with filling in the gaps.
Graduating with her Bachelor’s degree in film from CU Boulder a week later, Lily faced the blank slate of her post-college life. She considered living with her father in LA, moving in with film class friends, staying longer in Colorado. Like me, she saw a boat was drawing closer and closer to the shore.
At her graduation after-party, the two of us sat on the floor of her apartment while our friends played drinking games around us. I’d only just begun my search for an apartment, still high off the news of my acceptance. I broached the subject of moving again, half-teasing, half-serious.
“So — you gonna move with me?” I asked.
She laughed.
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
That night, our in-jest dreaming melted into genuine analysis. As far-fetched as moving to Ireland together seemed, it proved to be more realistic than we thought. Being a new graduate, Lily could easily get a J1 visa. I’d have a student visa handy, and it’d last for a year. She could work remotely as a footage editor, and I could live off my savings.
Despite the stress of moving countries, apartment-hunting in a housing shortage, and leaving our friends and family, living abroad was too exciting a prospect. Following a week of serious deliberation, Lily took a chance and agreed to move with me overseas.
Had we not moved together, we wouldn’t have been eligible for a listing seeking ‘two females’ for a room in Phibsborough, half an hour walking distance from campus. We wouldn’t have gone to Rome and Florence together, nor grown as friends and roommates.
Most importantly, she wouldn’t have landed the job of her dreams, or met the love of her life, either.
To be continued,
Constanze
It's so amazing how a single idea or toss of a coin can drastically change our lives. ✨️