Day One: ROMA - Opportunities are Created, Not Given

Things got worse before they got better.

The last time I traveled to Europe, I was 21 years old, studying abroad in London. I still look back on the experience as one of the happiest periods of time in my life, yet I hadn’t been back in almost a decade. I kept waiting for an engraved invitation.

I’d look at couples who took trips and blamed not having a boyfriend as the issue. Disclaimer: for a long time, I viewed this as the root cause of nearly every problem I had in my life.

I finally received my engraved invitation to Europe in May, in the form of a trip to Croatia to celebrate one of my dearest friends getting married. I backed out less than a week before the trip because of work. I let fear, excuses and anxiety get in the way of yet another experience, and I seriously let down someone I loved.

In case it’s not already blatantly obvious, being single was never the problem- the problem was, and had always been, me. The golden opportunity to go abroad I had been waiting 9 years on had come and gone, and I still wasn’t on the plane. This happened less than a week after the Vegas meltdown / loss of my grandmother I described yesterday; horrible doesn’t begin to describe how I was feeling. Failure. I felt like a complete and total failure.

I needed to heal whatever was going on within me.

I sought out a therapist, got acupuncture weekly, ramped up my breathwork and meditation efforts and cut out alcohol and weed. I knew if I was going to make it through this rough patch in my life, I needed to do it sober.

Fast forward three months, and I was on a plane by myself going to Rome. My ego was *not* happy, but I was liberated.

Italy happened because I decided to go. No more “one day” or “next time.” No more excuses. I wanted to go, so I invited myself and made it happen. My first day in Rome taught me that if you want something, you need to go get it yourself, otherwise you’ll be stuck waiting forever. The experience you want exists right now, and the only person with the power to stop you is… you.