I’m going to be completely honest. I have no idea when I became so afraid of everything and simply stopped living. I honestly can’t pinpoint the time that it happened. Was it when I moved to LA for college and had some serious stuff go down and experienced my first deep bout of depression at 19? Was it later, after my second, more serious bout of depression in my early 30’s? I don’t know. But somewhere along the way, I stopped going out into the world more and more, and started hiding more than living.

There have been brief escapes over the years… when I took a dream vacation to Walt Disney World, when I moved to Washington, and when I traveled to Minnesota for a blog conference. And there were times when I would go to baseball games and hiking and to the aquarium. I traveled for work, I went to concerts. But behind it all was the fear and the anxiety, and I would skip more things than I would attend, until suddenly I was 50 with only a handful of experiences under my belt.

And then I resigned myself that this was going to be my life. I was going to be the hermit who never left her home and died alone, having never experienced life. And every night I would pray that I wouldn’t wake up in the morning because it just wasn’t worth it. I was miserable, but felt like I was trapped and there was no way out. And I wanted more.

The shift away from that feeling has happened gradually. I left a job that I hated and an took simply to pay the bills and found a job where I felt both appreciated and fulfilled. I started giving more to help the world around me. But I still felt trapped by my circumstances, until one day I had an epiphany that I didn’t have to be. My circumstances still exist, but I can either sink into them and absorb the negativity, or I can push back and stop listening to everyone who tells me I can’t or shouldn’t pursue things that I’ve dreamt about my entire life.

I’ve decided that it’s time to start living. It’s not too late for me to travel or learn or experience life. I’m not too old to discover who I really am inside. I don’t want to be old and bitter and unhappy in 20 years, I still want to be vibrant and happy and alive!