Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

By even more astonishing coincidence, I'm not.

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

I revised my post because it isn't based on fahren, but führung.

There are still a few tickets left, if you hop on a plane!

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

Same etymological root as pendulum, no doubt. :)

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

Hi Dek, sorry to hear that your return to Blighty was a painful experience, and didn't work out as you had hoped. I know some people go back and love it, but I think for most of us, things move on and it is easy to forget that those we leave behind move on without us.

Anyhow, welcome "home" to the US and good luck with the next chapter of your life. .....

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

I just started reading this thread this morning and while I'm an American and probably should not be posting here at all, I have to say that I feared that when you returned to the UK that you would find that your friends had moved on to lives that no longer included you. It is normal.

It is not easy to make friends in the US. Americans know this, while many of us hate to admit it. I've found in the course of my life that it is easier to make friends if you leave yourself open to people. Meaning just saying a simple hello to people you see daily. I have the greatest friend right now that I only met 8 years ago with a simple hello while waiting for the morning train. It took two years before we started doing things together but now it is as if we have always been friends. We go to the theater, movies, dinner and have traveled to Europe twice together.

While I think you are moving back to the US too soon, not having given the UK and yourself enough time to make a new life, I am glad you are back and with the attitude that socialization will be one of your main objectives.

Parents can be ridiculous sometimes. My mum left Germany in 1948 and never went back. She left behind a sister who she talked with and wrote to and who even visited here in the States, but mum was adamant that she would never return to German soil and she never did. And yet, she brow beated my sis and I that in Germany one takes care of their parents and relatives above all others. Bit of a hypocrite in my eyes. Don't take your mum's words to heart. It is your life and you are free to live it the way you choose. Be happy.

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

There is absolutely nothing to stop you pursuing your writing career just because you don't live in LA or have a Masters degree. In fact, I'd bet that a Masters degree makes very little difference either way.

If you're good enough, you're good enough. That's that.

Please don't let that false idea determine whether you stay or go. You can learn just as much by reading books and writing, writing, writing every night after work - and you'll be doing it at home with friends and family around you.

I'm working on developing an art career and this post was really helpful to me - I hope it helps you too:
THE ULTIMATE CHEAT SHEET FOR REINVENTING YOURSELF - Altucher Confidential

As for giving up the dream of living in LA .... sometimes our dreams are there to wake us up to what we really want. Without having left, we can't find out that we were supposed to stay :)

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

Good post..

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

Best of luck.. I feel maybe you are heading back to the U.S too soon but if things don't work out for you, well you can always come back to the U.K.

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

Great post. Love the link. Paintings, drawings art is fabulous by the way and I'm very envious but inspired.

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

So how are things back in LA? Have you got out of the traffic jam in the LAX yet:lol:

I was there last week in Thousand Oaks. I have sympathy for those folks.
Glad to away from there!

Strange because I moved to LA in 1963 when California was all the rage. I then move to San Francisco in less than a year because of employment.

Nice that you can move back to the UK any time. Way to go:thumbup:

Cheers

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

When we emigrate, we get "stuck in time" as Kurt Vonnegut says of his hero Billy Pilgrim. I left Scotland in 1970 to work in the Middle East. I am now stuck forever in Ediburgh circa 1970 ! Weird.

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

Thanks so much for the kind words. I work very hard at it and there are many failures to get to one good painting, but I enjoy it despite the struggles :)

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

I'm not sure that I understand that. I left Newcastle (or effectively left) when I went to Oxford in 1969. I then left the UK in 1977.

We have returned to Newcastle (but will spend half of each year in France). We're not stuck anywhere in time...

Newcastle is an immensely more attractive place to live these days.

We even have a Pilgrim Street.

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

I think he just means he has fond memories of a place that no longer exists.

Just like we moved on, so did the cities that we left behind. I have memories of Sheffield, but having probably only visited there two or three times in the past twenty years and not more than a couple of dozen times since I left Sheffield as a child, the Sheffield that I remember is long gone. :(

Re: Keep chasing dreams or move back?
 

It's just like people. If you don't see someone for 20 years, you are shocked to find that they have aged - even though realistically you know that must be the case. Things just get locked in our minds the way they were.