why?

why Atlanta?

I’ve gotten it quite a bit.

I usually look at my shoes.  And then try to avoid eye-contact as I mutter out some lame explanation involving oppressive winters, costs of living and other equally boring things.

Because the real answer is a lot harder.  It sounds sketchy.  Immature.  Odd.

The real answer?

We’re chasing a dream.

The dream?

Oh you…of course you would go there.

I guess it officially started 8 months ago.  At end of our Making Things Happen intensive in Las Vegas (which I will finally write about soon… pinky swear) Lara Casey had us close our eyes and dream.  She had us envision where we would be in 5 years.  The sights, the sounds, the friends, what we would have done, etc.  And in that moment – it was clear: it was Atlanta.

Ted had been tossing it around for a while.  As he looked at his dream of going back to school to get his PHD in sociology and then basically change the world in ridiculously awesome ways, Atlanta started calling his name.  I started dragging my feet.  Or more accurately inserting them like ice cleats into anything that was near me.

Change?  Um…cue heart palpitations.  And anxiety. A need for a brown paper bag to hyperventilate into…  And a whole bunch of “heck no, I won’t go.”

Though I moved around a lot as a kid, we’d been here now for 9 years.  And though it wasn’t perfect (Chicago, I love you in the summer but you drive me nuts in the winter.  I’m sorry…) it was comfortable.  It was familiar.  And it didn’t take a lot of work.

But the truth is…comfortable isn’t always what’s best.  You get soft.  You stop trying so hard.  And you can oftentimes stop truly living.

Which is what I had done.

So we find ourselves chasing a dream.  Though it’s not completely clear (a hazy mud would be a more accurate description) we just know there’s a dream there waiting.  It’s about how we want to live as a family.  It’s about being in the city.  It’s about having real community with other artists so that I have to grow.  (even though that TERRIFIES me.)  It’s about inspiring work.  It’s about having neighbors that don’t look the same as us.  It’s about getting outside ourselves in a new way.

So we’re trying to jump.  And follow a dream.  Even though this week has pushed back and tried to make us let it go.

It’s scary.  And yet, it’s scarier not to go.  Not to change.  Not to force ourselves to grow.  Because then…who would we become?  And what would we miss?

 

 

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