Following an extremely busy, fun filled weekend of seeing friends and trying to squeeze in as much as possible before I leave, Monday definitely came too quickly!  However, I did manage to get mostly everything marked off of my list before going to have dinner with my friend Kristin and her adorable daughter Genevieve.  After eating an amazing Thai dinner (which I have not had since London) Kristin cracked her fortune cookie open first.  Immediately, she handed it to me and told me that it was for me.  It said, “Courage is the mastery of fear- not the absence of fear.”  Then I cracked my own cookie open to find NO fortune as Kristin affirmed, “See, it is your fortune!”  To make this even more meaningful, right before I left to go to Spain in 2011, I had dinner with Anita and James and my fortune said, “Better to face danger than to always be in fear.”  Of course, Anita thought it was perfect for me, but I did not understand exactly what it meant until actually going on the trip.

During the my travels I faced many fears when I was robbed, when I tried Couchsurfing for the first time, when I not only survived without a phone for three weeks, but did it in foreign countries, when I ventured out without planning it all out in advance.  Truly, those three weeks traveling by myself presented challenges that allowed me to face my fears and get over so much.  Then after facing even more extreme fears during the past six months while trying to live in four different places chosen for varying reasons, traveling in between, and having a few crazy situations, I have faced some of my former worst-case scenarios of even more extreme fears and I have also learned to tune in even more to following my intuition and feelings.

Honestly, the freedom and experience that my lack of personal belongings has allowed me to achieve are priceless.  My perspective on everything has changed.  Who knows what my future holds, all I know is that today I am getting on a plane to Costa Rica to meet my best friend from Argentina to kick off my next two month adventure in which the first two weeks and last five days are planned, yet the rest is open whatever the Universe guides me to do.  I am so excited to experience this next chapter of my adventure!