So I am about to board an aircraft and… boldly go, where I have never gone before.

Honestly? Not so sure yet, if this is the coolest thing I will ever do or the most stupid thing I could have possible maneuvered myself into.

In the beginning – there was…*OF COURSE*… a boy. A 30 year old, cute boy, who spend the past months since August making plans with me. Yes, I did meet him on the internet and yes, that was kinda crazy to begin with (online dating is a book worth of story, I am not even going to start writing about it now), but seriously, we talked every day for three months. And I liked him. Navy Officer, college degree, driven, down to earth, funny… exactly what I want (and since we are honest, he was hot too, I might want to add that). And lucky me, he lives on the west coast, at the Pacific – that ocean that I have wanted to see for as long as I can think of. Also pretty close to my folks in Tucson. In a state that I have never been to, different culture, different climate, everything different. I have been so sick of my life for a while – when I purchased the ticket, I felt like I was purchasing a huge breath of inspirational fresh air. And being me – of course I made up awesome plans how mindblowing horizon-expanding this trip was gonna be, including a beautiful fairy tale-fantasies with a long run happy ending.

Until Navy-Boy ditched me 12 days ago.

Considering my history with men and unpretty and rude rejections – I really should be used to this by now. Actually – I AM used to it.……….it just never involved non-refundable airplanetickets.

I am flying half around the globe – and for the first time in my life nobody is coming along and nobody is going to pick me up. I don’t even know yet, how I get from the airport to my destination. And there is certainly not going to be anything happening that I imagined.

So fact is: I am about to board a plane – and with that… I am indeed crossing a personal “final frontier”: it will only take 15 hours to literally cut me off from everything I know, am familiar with and used to.

Somehow that sounded way more fun and romantic and less like a threat or a huge desaster when I still thought I was going to see Navy-Boy.

Cause in other words:
the minute I step out of LAX – I am pretty much screwed.

Peculiar: I think I should be really kinda freaked out about that. But actually… I am really kinda not.

I could just head down to Tucson to my folks right away. That would be the easiest way out. I’d be save and cared for. But deep down inside, I understand I can’t do that. I can’t play this one save.

Whenever life does it’s best to disappoint and crush me, my friend Jeanne tells me:
Everything happens for a reason.
As much as I have struggled with this quote greatly over the years, I still like to believe it’s true.

I used to believe in faith, hope and love. And right now, I don’t believe in either. Which pretty much means I don’t believe in anything at all anymore.
I hear I am so adventurous and brave and creative, I will have so much fun and meet so many new people and this will be a once in a lifetime experience. That it does not matter that I had different plans and fantasies. That it will not matter that I had wished for a fairy tale to be part of it. I haven’t been this person in a VERY long time, I barely remember it.
I have grown indifferent. Everything in my life has the colour and taste of cardboard. Every day is the same, nothing ever changes.
I have grown used to gracefully accept the compromises I have to make in order to make life work, I have grown accustomed to the poor redemptions and alibis I create for myself, so that I don’t feel disappointed.

Plus: I have grown very used to putting the things I want to do and wish for off. Till next week, till next month, till next year, till someone special comes along to share it with.

No, hell, this is not a midlife crisis. And I am not starting a bucket list cause I suddenly realized I am mortal and time is ticking away. I have simply grown into a vapid, poor and sad imitation of myself. Kinda ironical, I have also grown very used to and accustomed to that.

I have stopped reaching for the stars. I settled for touching my horizon and be ok with it.

So it pretty much all comes down to this: Navy-Boy was not the main reason for this trip. The vivid imagined fairy tale just made it so much damn easier to step over a line that I have successfully avoided for years.

My life can’t go on like that. I was not born for this and certainly not raised for it either.

I was born to strive for inspirational and exceptional greatness, not ordinary and indifferent settlement. I need to remember who I was before life sucked all ambition, drive and dreams out of me.

I freaking need to get my groove back!

And in order to do that, I need this trip to be exactly unpredictable and screwed up as it is. If I play it save – I will just do what I always do and get what I always get.

The Brazilian author Paulo Coelho wrote in his book “The Devil and Miss Prym”: “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait.”

So, dear life, I always enjoy a good dare. And the one thing, you did not manage to take away from me in all these years, is courage.

The challenge has been accepted.
Bring it on.