“Never give up on your dreams!” 

“You can be anything you want to be!”

“Shoot for the moon...something, something...land among the stars!” (Okay, I just didn’t have the energy to look that one up)

Dreams. We all have them. But do we all “chase” them? And why do dreams need to be chased? What if achieving our dreams was always right in front of us, and we just decided to look away?  

As dreamy as dreams can seem...they are just as attainable as that third cup of coffee sitting in front of you right now. You just have to decide this is what you want, and FREAKING GO FOR IT.

“But Tegan...my dream is to become a stilt-walking, cat-juggling professional in Bali. And I don’t have stilts. Or cats. Or any idea where Bali is. IT’S JUST TOO HARD.”

Ok, first of all, I hear you. I also don’t know where Bali is...BUT it doesn’t mean we can’t figure it out! I live my life following the principle that everything is “figure-out-able.” (Yes, that’s a word) And yes, the journey of figuring your stuff out can be hard, but man, isn’t life more worth living when it’s kicking your butt a little bit?? When we put ourselves out there, be vulnerable, take a risk or two, this is when life TRULY happens.

(Side note: I fully recognize that the road paved in front of me is quite a bit clearer than my marginalized friends, and that is an immense privilege. If your road is like mine, then it is your duty to help others clear their roads too.)

Let me share a little story about when I took the first HUGE risk in my life. And oh man, was it scary. But I was so IN LOVE with my dream and so clearly convinced it would be figure-out-able that it turned out to be the best decision I’ve made in my entire life and the most rewarding last seven years.

I always dreamed about living in New York City, studying at Juilliard, and performing on Broadway. My 8-year-old self was so convinced this would be a reality I would sign my yearbooks, “Come see me on Broadway!” - even though I didn’t really know what “Broadway” was at the time. Fast forward to when that squishy, hopeful, freaking sunshiney brain gathers a little cloud cover as puberty sets in, and that dream seemed less and less of a reality. Fast forward AGAIN (this is the short version, people) to when I was a full-grown adult, with an adult job and adult insurance (read: “Sta-bil-i-ty”) and had very much lost that eager little girl who believed she could do exactly what she wanted to do with her life. 

But one day...my eyes were opened. It was like I had been driving past this beautiful tree-lined, sunshiney (I like this word) path for several years and completely didn’t realize it existed until now. Then I made the decision to turn left and explore.

I quit my job, sold my car, packed all my stuff in the back of a 16-foot U-Haul truck, and drove with my mama all the way from Kentucky, through the candy cane forest and across the George Washington Bridge. (And let me tell you...after driving a huge truck across the GWB, I felt like I could do ANYTHING!)

And this is where it gets good, y’all. You start vibrating at the level the universe wants you to (a.k.a taking risks and using the squishy, sunshiney part of your brain), and that’s when things miraculously start to fall into place.

Ready for this list? I love lists.

1. My theatre friend from college just happened to need a roommate.
2. She found an apartment that just happened to have two rooms available and was super cheap (Well. New York cheap. Which is still...opposite of cheap).
3. Our fridge in our new apartment had a magnet from the show my friend and I had done together left on it from the previous owner (ok that’s just a little nod from the universe saying, “You doin’ this right, girl”).
4. I found a few side jobs pretty quickly to pay the bills while auditioning. 
5. I booked a job after one month of living in the city.
6. I made new friends, learned new things, tried new things (including threading my eyebrows and leggings...yes I’m serious. How was I living life without these my whole life?!)

But most of all, I was living the life I always wanted to live. 

And this is only because I decided to. I decided to get serious and oh so very clear about what I wanted. I decided not to let anything stand in my way (figure-out-able). I decided that this one precious life is for living and not for standing on the sidelines, watching it pass you by. 

And you can do this too. You want to stilt walk and juggle cats (just be careful, ok?) in Bali - go for it! All you need is to very clearly believe this crazy thing I just made up is a very, very real reality and decide that you’re going to do everything in your godforsaken power to get up there on those stilts. (Have I exhausted this metaphor yet?)

Get to work and do the work. I believe in you. Do you believe in you? You got this.