The Fitz Roy @ El Chalten, Argentina 2012

I'm almost thirty.  I'll say it again.  <<deep breath>>  I'm almost thirty.  For anyone who hasn't turned thirty yet, you understand when I say that this birthday feels like a BIG DEAL.  Ninety percent of the expectations I had for myself when I was ten years old, I planned to achieve by the time I was thirty:

• Graduate high school (Check!)
• Get into college (Check!)
• Graduate college (Check!)
• Land a well-paying job (Check..sort of!)
• Settle down in one place (Huh?!)
• Get married (Whoa, wait, what?!)
• Buy a house (Like, a real house?)
• Have kids (Hoooold up!  I can't keep my plants alive!)

So, that's roughly 50% of what I intended to do.  Fif-ty-Per-cent!  Being a classic overachieving, first born daughter, I don't think I have every been satisfied with completing 50% of any task I set out to do. If it's not 110% completed, then I give myself a BIG, FAT F.  (I know, I know.  You're shaking your head.  I'm working on it, I swear!)

As I was about to turn 29 in January, 2012, I took a look at my list and realized that for once in my life I was going to be short of my goals.  Full blown panic mode set in.  Like, trapped in a fox-hole panic mode.   I was sitting my car when a friend called me from work upset about something or other, and this switch just went off in my brain.  "Enough of this!" it said.  

This was a Friday.  On Monday, I quit my full-time position and booked a three week trip to Patagonia.  Since then I've been to Argentina, Chile, Iceland, Italy: Rome, Naples, Sorrento, Pompeii, Florence, Switzerland: Luzerne, Lugano, and Bern, and Istanbul, Turkey.  I have met more inspirational people, have had more enriching experiences, and have learned more about myself in the past year than in the past 29 years combined!  (Or maybe I'm just learning to recognize and appreciate these things...)

My focus now is on home.  It's on deepening my current friendships and seeking out inspirational people who maybe living right next door to me.  It is with this sentiment that I am starting the Astoria Hiking Club, because, I made a promise to myself that  

I'm doing this thirty thing right!