Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Risking Lives...

We're all risking lives if we are not living.

For me, traveling is living, traveling is everything.

For others, families, working or doing the best they can to just live.

Go out, travel, see more, experience more - it's one of the only ways you will see how life is really like, and then make your judgements from there, but try and see what it brings you, even if it's just for a short time.

Almost two years ago I started traveling, and if I didn't go I would be working at a newspaper with benefits, a great apartment and maybe the start of something different...

But I am in Ireland, awaiting whatever adventures may come, building towards a future of life stories instead of a future behind a desk.

This is what living is about for me.

Risking a life I could have had for the life I have now - traveling, experiencing, meeting new and exciting people, just living.

I know when I grow old I will have stories to tell of the crazy adventures I had by going after what I wanted....

What will you have to tell?

Make sure it's something good, something worth it and not something you will regret.

Much Love,

Tara

Monday, September 30, 2013

Amnesia...

It's been over a year since my last post...or near to it anyways.

Now I feel a bit like Amnesia has set in - I don't remember everything that has happened in the last year, just bits and pieces really.

Where did I even leave off? I didn't read my last post before I wrote this one. Thought it would be best to help me 'start over' in a way. To write from what I feel now.

Now.

I'm working too much, suffering the fragile friendships I do have and lost in this life once again.

I know I started out this blog lost, but is there ever a time when we are not lost in life?

When it came to writing about what I was going through this past year, I was...I guess...embarrassed would be the right word. I have done things I never thought I would. Things I promised to myself since I was a kid I wouldn't do. But I developed this mentality to 'try everything once' and I let myself go.

Not in a bad way, though I guess you could say I was close a few times, just to losing who I was that is. And not in the way you are thinking - let's get that out of your head right now!

I started this blog out of heartbreak, to help myself and those that may be going through the same things as me, or similar anyways.

Now I'm restarting it in heartbreak again, but in a different way than before, very much different as I know I have grown up quite a bit from the last time.

Now, I'm heartbroken in that I let myself get caught up in another person and I forgot who I was. I'm heartbroken that I lost friendships along the way that were great. I'm heartbroken that I didn't stick to focusing on myself and what I needed and wanted to do with my life.

I set out on this adventure exactly 1 year, 6 months and 18 days ago to chase after my dreams of becoming a writer, a photographer and a world traveller.

In that time I have seen so many amazing things - London, Oxford, Barcelona, Paris, Dublin, Galway (and the Cliffs of Moher), Cork (including Ballymaloe), Sicily, Salerno, Cassino and Rome, Italy - and yet I have seen so little in this time I have spent on this side of the Atlantic. I got so caught up in someone else's life that I forgot about my own.

Now my one year in Ireland is almost up, and possibly wasted for most of it, but I may have another chance. I may have the chance to stay longer and do more of what I intended to set out to do in the beginning.

Now the question is whether I can stick to focusing on me, my job and my friendships.

Amnesia is defined as 'a partial or total loss of memory.' I'm hoping I can develop a small bit of amnesia for the last year I spent in Ireland and focus on the good things that have happened and the good things that have yet to come.

I want to do so much more with my life, and I know I could do some amazing things with where I've taken myself so far, I just have to get that focus back once again to do these.

Now.

To focus on my writing, my photography, my blogging, my traveling and my job. These are what I want to do and have pushed back for too long.

Thankfully I felt a small bit of inspiration from somewhere unexpected and could spur up the courage to write a little something about what has been going on this past year or so.

Now, friends, keep in touch and don't lose focus on what you want in life, no matter what it is. And if you do, even for a small time, always try to get back on track in some way.

Your dreams are what makes you who you are and if you strive for them constantly you will find something quite unexpected.

And don't forget that dreams can shape and change as you go along - it's what makes life so much more interesting, the unknowing and the challenges that get thrown your way.

Now to end in a quote with a good meaning:

'Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.'
Steven Wright

(Isn't it so true that we humans keep making the same mistakes over and over? The only good thing is that we somehow learn bit by bit and the mistakes change with who we are and, thus, even if we make the same mistakes, it feels so very different at each progressive point in our lives)

Peace and Love,
Tara