Cristina Zenato

Cristina Zenato Instagram – Day 5 Question 5
The Cost of Living the Dream
Life is half a choice; we pick 50% of it and live it to the fullest, then perhaps pick the other 50%, but we cannot always have it all; it is not possible.
Every choice has a price. We decide which price we are willing to pay and which not. There is no night or wrong; our choices come with consequences.
Lo live my dream, there have been financial decisions to pursue passion and experiences rather than a stable and reliable income, living in an area subject to hurricanes, and the physical toll that being an active diver for thirty years has taken on my body.
The steepest price I pay is different.
I live 6000 miles away from my family.
In the first 26 years of my career, which requires working while everyone else was on holiday, I went home for Christmas twice. I celebrated my dad’s 80th birthday, the only one I will get to celebrate before he passed; I celebrated one Grandma’s birthday and then she left us as well.
Every time I said see you soon at the airport, I felt excruciating pain, divided between two loves, the one of my family and the one that is my calling. I thought that with time, it would get better; it doesn’t. Now, with @kewinlorenzen in my life, it’s double; we must say see you later to two families we love very much.
Technology allows for daily check-ins, and we share videos and images, but we still celebrate milestones miles apart, unable to be together for most of them.
Living on an island is like a dream to many, but it’s living with the limitations of the island.
Many people come and go; we make friends, and they leave. I have lost count of the friends I have made and the ones who have gone somewhere else. There are also the friends we lose to the nature of our business and line of work.
These are the prices I paid for living the dream, a dream that has allowed me to make countless connections, meet amazing people, experience incredible places, and fulfill my calling, and I would not have it any other way, but it’s a personal decision we each have to make and no one else can make for us.
Be kind in the comments, not an easy subject to share. | Posted on 29/May/2024 18:39:22