Everything, apparently (according to my father.)

Once again I find myself wading out into the murky waters of the unknown; to go to Italy for a master degree, or to not?

The application, completed. The transcripts, secured.

My bank account, and overall financial future, not so much.

I got engaged two weeks ago, and have enjoyed celebratory drinks and meals, but looming is the uncertainty about our next chapter together. Will I continue a life strapped into a career that doesn’t inspire me but provides the comfort and stability of a warm home and lifestyle creep?

Since the age of 15, I’ve never not had a job. I waited tables throughout high school, college (even paid my way through senior year on a server salary), and beyond. Since Covid, I’ve enjoyed the perks of the 9-5 office job; fantastic health insurance and a steady drip of income every few weeks.

My partner, though, has taken the less-trodden path. Trudging upwards at a startup has not been without it’s pitfalls as the flexibility and upside potential is not without cost.

Which brings me to today – another year has gone by and another application tab is still open on my desktop, along with Fidelity, Vanguard, Chase, Bank of America and American Express. How many Reddit articles can I write, anonymously asking strangers advice about what they would do in our “net worth and cash flow profile” situation. Is the financial risk of a life of beauty, adventure, and unknown worth the plunge? Will my values hold up when our bank accounts start to retreat?

Only time will tell..

Written on Sept. 2023 on a train somewhere between Naples and Rome.

The graduate school application on my desktop computer is closed, but the imagined experience of attending the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra, Italy is alive and breathing fire in my stomach, taunting me. I’ve attempted to complete the application since 2019, freshly plucked from undergraduate life, each year an excuse bubbling up and keeping me from clicking “submit”.

Transcripts collected, recommendations secured, pages and pages of thoughtfulness strewn out, my innermost dreams plucked from my consciousness and formed into sentences and paragraphs explaining why a year of studying anthropology through the lens of sustainable food systems is the logical next step in my journey. 

Excitement looms, disappointment settles, and anxiousness bubbles up. What about my “safe” career in private equity? What about our two kitties? My home and mortgage in Chicago? The love of my life, although willing and eager to join me for a year in the Piemontese hills, is amidst a career just taking flight?

Fear reigns, seemingly overtaking my agency. What if I actually followed my dreams? Would I be doomed to a life of catching up monetarily and emotionally? 

I peer out the window at the Italian landscape and feel the varied sensations within, the Frecciarossa piercing through the countryside like a hot knife through butter. 

Yet, what if this is the best decision I could ever make in my life? What if anxiety transmutes into… excitement?

A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step – and I know that my life journey will not be spent in a cubicle selling private equity to pension plans. My life will be rich in ‘benessere’ through an industriousness and adventurous approach; challenging, full of learning, trying and failing, and testing my limits. Most of all, it will be MY journey.

Outside the fear of judgments of others and obstacles that lie ahead comes true freedom. 

I turn 27 in just over a week. What will this next year look like? Preparing for the next step in my journey: marriage to my life partner, attending the University I’ve been eager to jump into for 5 years, and experiencing dreams becoming reality. 

Lean into the fear.

Teetering on the edge of reality and the dream world, the artist balances like a tightrope walker on a high wire. Despite bills to pay, rents to be collected, and responsibilities to be tended to, the artist persists outside of the framework as the world churns about.

I used to travel, alone, on a one-way ticket, endlessly wandering. As soon as I boarded a plane to a far-off land, the reality of the world at home would vanish. For months on end, I’d enter and live in a dream-like state on the edge of an alternate dreamscape, still grounded in the notion that the transitory world I was experiencing was indeed temporary. To lose oneself in this state may be existentially threatening, for the real world provides the security and stability needed for a long and fruitful life. The dream world, however, is a realm of reckless abandonment.

Certain “geniuses” of our era somehow have found a way to merge the dream state with reality, living in a state of constant creative tension. For the rest of us, we must strive to find our own balance, between the real and unreal, always striving to keep our footing, aware of the risks and rewards.

A temporary fix, for me, into this dream world while firmly planted in reality is through music, a present meal, or a present moment in time.

Restaurants/Bars as of late that have evoked a “dreamscape”:

• El Rincon de Fabio on Argyle in Uptown
• Kumiko in West Loop

Music that has taken me there recently:

• Lifafa
• Johan Papaconstantino
• Liberato

Keep trying to take yourself there.