“Michael Marier lived an enviable life in Chicago. He earned about $75,000 a year managing promotions, which often meant giving away free booze alongside models at chi-chi nightclubs. He lived in a “beautiful” 2,000-square-foot Lincoln Square apartment. He drove a Lexus. But one day last July, Marier ditched it all — the plush job, the cushy lifestyle, the city where he’d spent childhood, high school and college. With his pit bull at his side, Marier left Chicago and made for Napa Valley, not certain where he’d sleep when he got there but determined to begin a new life as a novice (if broke) winemaker. ‘Lots of people thought I was nuts walking away from that, but I just never really felt any sort of connection with what I was doing,’ said Marier, 27, who is in Chicago for the summer — the off-season for winemaking — visiting family and working at Randolph Wine Cellars. ‘I wanted to create my life around something I had a passion for.’ It’s romantic, this notion of shedding all things comfortable and familiar in pursuit of a passion, a new adventure or life’s next chapter — and it has inspired many a dramatic story line. The new ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ spinoff ‘Private Practice,’ which ABC recently confirmed would be on its fall schedule, follows Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) as she abandons Seattle and all its baggage for a fresh shot at happiness in L.A. Fans felt the thrill of her new beginning in the pilot episode as she sped down California’s Pacific Coast Highway in her little red convertible. In the real world, however, most hesitate to act on fantasies of reinvention, balking at the risk in such drastic change. What drives some to take the leap?”
