Even when I write those words, “moving to Ocean City,” I feel the fear in the pit of my stomach expand and push outwards and up, creeping all the way to the base of my throat. I hear the incessant questioning of myself: Am I really doing this? Am I really cramming all of my stuff (and all of my boyfriend’s stuff) in the back of my little baby car and driving three and a half hours away to live and work at the beach? Is this really what I want to be doing, what I “should” be doing, the “right path?” And the time bomb that I’ve really been tip-toeing around these past eight weeks: Is there still time to bail? With 6 days left until the move, a job and roommates already there waiting for me, and all the summer clothes I own sprawled out across my bedroom floor, I’m finally facing the reality that there is, in fact, no more time to flake. And too much to flake on this time. I’m going. It’s going to be okay. I’m being led there. I wanted this.

The day that my roommate picked me up from the New York airport, as excited as I was to be back in America (to my surprise) and to see everyone I loved in my hometown, I was only halfway back when I decided that I couldn’t stay in York for the summer. I knew it in my gut. I had barely made it home when I did, filling out change of flight forms on my last day in Thailand and making plans with a dear friend I’d met traveling to keep going across Asia, onward to Vietnam. But an hour and a half walk through Ao Nang and conversations with my sister, my boyfriend, and God convinced me that I was needed back home, too. It was time to go.

But on that drive back to our apartment, the wheels in my mind were turning overtime. Where to next? York didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt like home base. I knew I needed to travel, needed to live out of whatever was on my back and see the world, knew I’d never felt so fulfilled and free as I did when I backpacked through Thailand. I wanted more, needed more, and needed more money to do it. The idea to move to the beach this summer and work hit me out of nowhere as we were on the highway.

“Let’s move to Ocean City this summer,” I said to my roommate. “I have somewhere we can live. We’ll absolutely be able to get a job. There’s nothing stopping us. I’m serious, Nelly. Let’s do it. I’m doing it. Are you in or what?”

I was ecstatic and sure. I didn’t give myself any time to think. I didn’t give her any time to think. I texted my niece immediately who lives there every summer and asked for a place to stay. I started looking at job fairs and places we could apply. I contacted my boyfriend and asked if he was willing to come with me. There was no fear, no second-guessing. I knew. And my certainty must have had an effect on them too… Because before I knew it, they agreed wholeheartedly. Before I knew it, I mean basically within days, it was all aligned.

Reflecting back on that car ride, I realize how out of touch I am in this moment, in this town, with that part of me—that part of me that lives without fear, that lives instead on instinct and intuition and taking risks. Because truthfully, and though it often doesn’t look this way on the outside (and especially on the internet), when things get scary or intense or intimate or vulnerable, I tend to take off running. I tend to flake on my responsibilities, on my relationships, on my potential. One of my closest teachers used to tell me: “Potential is a horrible word.” I didn’t see what he was seeing back then, but I understand it all too clearly now. All this potential I know I have, all this that I’ve always known I can do and be and achieve—if and only if I walk through the fear—is heavy to hold when I’m scared. And so, so often I give into that fear and chose comfort and safety and familiarity instead, hiding and retreating within myself.

A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for. —John A. Shedd.

But here is what I learned more than anything else when I traveled through Thailand: that is not me authentically. That is not me living as the Highest version of myself. That is not me deep in my core, my spirit, my soul. I don’t stay stuck or stagnant. Which is why when I was there, I felt so goddamn free, so absolutely, without reservation, myself. Traveling through Thailand allowed me to fully rely on my gut, on my faith in God and in the Universe, on my strong intuition (because seriously, what else did I have to rely on?). I moved through that world with fluid motion, without stopping to think things through or question myself. I moved with intention and purpose, even in the simplest actions like not wearing a bra in a rather revealing dress to walk and get coffee. Like which flight I should book and when I should book it. Like what I looked like in a restaurant at a 4-person table all alone writing in my notebook. I walked and walked and walked through uncertainty and fear.

These past two months have been laced with a lot of other people’s excitement about my “next adventure.” I took a lot of pride in being asked every day where I was off to next, a lot of satisfaction in being viewed as “that person” who’s willing to just up and say “fuck it.” I got message after message, even from people I haven’t talked to in months or years or ever, telling me how inspiring my trip was. I had conversation after conversation with people about how they woke up every morning and the first thing they did was watch my snap chats, how much they enjoyed reading my blog, and thanking me for being so motivating and open and helping them to feel that they could do whatever they wanted to, too.

Thank you, all of you, so sincerely, that said any combination or variation of those words to me. The support was so beautiful, regardless of how strange and overwhelming. Because if I’m going to continue to be honest and vulnerable and open here, the second I entered York again, I didn’t feel like any of those things anymore. It was startling and literally debilitating how fast the old habits and thought patterns I’d thought I’d gotten rid of reentered and swarmed me. Not only was I physically sick from jet lag and the rougher-than-I’d-ever-expected-two-day travel home, I was more depressed than I remembered feeling when I left. I hid in bed for days ignoring everyone and calling off of work, having dream after dream of Thailand, waking up and wondering what part of the country I was in every single morning. I craved motion and action, but found myself paralyzed and completely unmotivated (made obvious by the fact that my blog came to an inconsistent mess). It felt like all the life in me was sucked right out, or left in a country oceans away.

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. —Rilke

As I started to tell people about moving to Ocean City until September, new questions came rolling in about where and with who and for what and the worst of them all: are you excited!? At first, I could barely muster up a smile to say that I was. And finally, I stopped lying. Mostly out of an inability to fake it anymore.

“I’m trying to be,” I told them. “But really I’m just scared.”

Most people didn’t understand. Most people told me how thrilled they were for me, how much they’d always wanted to do that too, how great of a time I was going to have. You’re going to be blocks away from the ocean! You’re going to make so much money! You’re going to have soooo much fun! It made me queasy. My roommate was so overjoyed that I could barely listen to her talk about any of it ( :) Nelly, I love you so much). My boyfriend tried over and over to reframe the situation for me, to get me to look at it all positively again. And so many others listened to me talk about my gnawing apprehensions and reassured me that I would be fine—and probably even love it. (Crazy, right?)

Thank you so much to all of you too. Because every time someone commented on my trip, felt excited for my next move, or just listened to me wrestle with my mind these past two months, it kept me moving forward. It helped me feel unstuck when, truly, I was fighting with myself, day in and day out, to pretend to look okay and certain and confident, when I was actually not in the world at all. I was buried deep inside my head with every fear and self-doubt I’ve ever had, like piranhas chewing away at my spirit.

I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. —Cheryl Strayed

So what was I so scared of? As crazy as it sounds when I feel so off here, leaving the comforts and routines of my small pond hometown. Leaving my mom, my dad, my (pregnant!) little sister, and my amazing close friends who I run to the second I feel any sense of discomfort or uneasiness. Moving into a tiny room with my boyfriend—which I could write a whole post on itself (anyone who knows me knows how out of character that one is). Working in a new restaurant. Working a lot of hours when I haven’t been lately. Missing people, missing important events, missing out.

But really, all those things boil down to is fear of the unknown. Fear of the jump. And I’ve realized the past few days, as my ideas on how to get out of this decision subside, as I finally start to accept and actually feel excited that I’m going, that this is absolutely what I’m supposed to be doing. That the swamp (because that’s exactly what fear feels like—walking through a sticky, slow-moving, dreary swamp in the middle of the night) that I’ve been stuck in the past two months was exactly the path to here. The only one.

And I’m faced, as I always am, with the fact that I’m human, that I’m fallible, that feelings are just feelings, and that fear is not real. It’s created in the mind, and the more that I give into it, the greater it becomes. The more I focus on it, the bigger it gets. Until it’s all that I see anymore, until it’s weight is crushing me, until I find myself driving to places and sitting in parking lots, unable to get out of the car, and just driving back home to crawl into my bed, over and over and over. (True story. That was my entire week last week.)

Until one day, I wake up and it’s finally stopped raining. Until one day, I go sit on my roof in the sunshine and can recognize everything I have to be grateful for. Until one day, I remember—like a glass door shattering in front of me, reverberating my eardrums, shaking my foundation—that the fear doesn’t fucking matter, it just matters that I walk through it.

We’re at a crossroads. One path leads further into familiar territory. The other path leads to a breakthrough. What lies on the other side, we can’t see. It’s the void, the unknown, the unknowable. This isn’t death. It’s rebirth, an awakening as profound as that moment when sobriety first takes hold of a lifelong drunk. Or when the confused codependent takes those first steps of self-care. Are you willing to risk it? Have you reached the point yet where enough is enough? Or will you take the other, more familiar path back to continue rehashing what you’ve already been through? Sometimes its easier to stay with our limitations and with what doesn’t work. At least then we know what to expect. Take a chance. Try something new. Go ahead. Step on that new path, even though you’re not certain where it will lead. Right around the bend is a glowing light. The new path may not be any easier to walk than the old path, but this new road will lead to joy. For now, it’s enough to be willing to change. To do that, step into the void. —More Language of Letting Go, 366 New Daily Meditations by Melody Beattie, May 14th

And so I gutted myself in writing this to show anyone thats reading that it’s not about how you feel and it’s not about what it all looks like from the outside that signifies courage. My transparency is only to show you that even though I am one to take the risk, to step into the void, to say “fuck it” and go, it is not always some mindless, carefree decision that gets me there. And I don’t believe that real courage is ever that sweet and easy. It’s about taking the time to accept the fear, accept your own flaws, but then remembering to release them. It’s about being open about your worries to anyone who will listen, and watching them melt into the sidewalk cracks along your way. It’s about mustering up just enough strength and faith to do it anyway. To pack up all your stuff in your little baby car that might break down along the freeway and start driving. All shaking hands and unsteady heart. I promise you, the only way out is not back or around, but right through. Right on into the light.

This summer, you’ll find me on the beach basking in it. This time, not alone, but right next to people that hold such a prominent place in my heart.

Ready or not, it’s time to go.

♥