Aufwachsen!

It seems like everyone lives their lives on a one track path to the "American Dream". In high school, all the other kids had their top colleges picked out, they studied hard for the best ACT scores and they applied years in advance for those scholarships, telling themselves they'd do whatever it takes to get into where it is they want to go. I was never one of those kids. I never had a college picked out or even a profession for that matter. I just had a country picked out and a driven dream to become an exchange student. I never dreamed about living in the dorm room, going to all the frat parties and after graduating a 4-year university getting married, settling down, getting a great job and buying a beautiful little house with a fenced in yard and having a few children to go with it. That's what most people think of when they think of the "American Dream", right? I finally got the opportunity 2 years ago to fulfill my dream.
Ever since I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was go to Germany and be an exchange student. And I did, I was. I became apart of something bigger than anything I could have ever imagined and I found myself terrified, and excited for every new day. I came to find that the things in life we're most afraid of are the things that were most worth while. I got back from Germany about a year and a month ago. July 10th to be exact. This past year, i've just felt like there was something missing, I lost that unionized excitement and terror I had on my exchange and gained comfort. I got back into the every day role of things, going through the motions and waking up every day wondering what it is i'm doing to make my life matter. I got comfortable and I lost the adventure. I keep telling myself, I need to do something that makes me come alive, that gives me fear, that gives me purpose. But somehow, I never get around to it. But this is me, getting around to it. This world is something bigger than me, something bigger than all of us. I completed one dream and so it's time for me to start another. My new dream? I want to experience the world. I don't want to see the world, I want to experience it to its full potential. I want to go to a third world country and give all of me that I can, to not only see how others live but to see how they can live such simple and worry-filled lives but still dance through the streets in rejoice that they had the opportunity to see today. I want to get to know those people, I want to talk to them and find out what their dreams are, find out what makes them come alive. I want to dance along side them and share time side by side. I want to go to Europe and travel around, I want to go back to the beauty of the earth all the while being surrounded by languages that I don't understand and not be held back by a border separating countries. It's time for me to break away from the loop of every day life once more and continue on in direction "out of the ordinary". I know where I want to be, I can see myself there and the journey scares me but that's how I know it will be the journey that is going to be the most worth while. All I need to do now is: get there.