#getgutsy

[lady-storms-world]

My new dress #goldendress #champagnecoloured #gorgeous I love this...but I hope I will have to alter it because it will be too big in 2 months... I am going on a diet!!! #GetgutsywithKeryn #getgutsy

[getgutsywithmichellepowell-blog]

This is the year of YOU #getgutsywithmichellepowell #getgutsy #guthealth #cleaneating #weightloss #believeinyourself #itsallaboutyou

[getgutsywithmichellepowell-blog]

This platter looks stunning

[getgutsywithmichellepowell-blog]

My boys have embraced the Gut Health life style. Aston loves sparkling mineral water with a slice of lime and strawberries and Camden loves his apples for a snack Bye Bye junk food and Hello Fresh and Clean #getgutsywithmichellepowell #getgutsy #guthealth #weightloss

[theadventurepro]

[eliteate]

Restricted free-agent

Getting gutsy is all about stepping outside your comfort zone to reach your goals. I’m participating in Jessica Lawlor’s #GetGutsy Essay Contest. To get involved and share your own gutsy story, check out this post for contest details.

I stood in at Gate 6 in Philadelphia's cavernous 30th Street Station with a massive blue floral suitcase (borrowed from my mother) and a smaller, understated maroon suitcase (my own) huddled at my feet.

In my hand I clutched a one-way train ticket to BWI, rumpled from me nervously wrinkling it in attempt to distract myself from the inevitable goodbye looming in the background.

The departures tote board clicked and shuffled every few minutes as commuters swirled around behind me. 

"I'll miss you" were the last words I was able to stammer to my mother before we both succumbed to tears.

As we hugged each other in a dramatic goodbye in the moment my life as I knew it forever changed, other people were going about their daily routines.

Sometimes being gutsy means being alone. 

And that's how I was this past June when I moved to a city where I knew no one.

**

Everything changes when you become a visitor to the place where you were once a permanent resident.

After I got the phone call that I had gotten the Charlotte job, I spent 10 days packing up whatever bits and pieces of my life I could cram into two massive, 50-lb. boxes and two suitcases.

I signed a lease for a place I found online -- one that I never saw in person until the day I actually moved in. 

I plodded my way through difficult goodbyes to many of the people -- friends, family members, teachers, coaches, mentors -- all of whom helped guide me through the first 24 years of my life in a number of different ways.

And then, on the morning of June 10, I sat in the passenger seat of my mom's car driving away from the only house I've ever lived in equipped with just that one-way train ticket, two suitcases and blind faith that everything would work out.

I didn't know anyone in Charlotte, or anyone within two hours of the city, really.

"You're crazy to do this," I remember my friend (who has both jumped out of a plane in the Swiss Alps and bungee-jumped off the tallest bridge in Australia) telling me.

Maybe I was crazy.

But I knew that taking a risk isn't crazy -- it was gutsy. And being gutsy, well, that's how you grow.

I knew I had outgrown Philadelphia.

Its jagged skyline, once so formidable, became a reminder that I was too comfortable.

The gridlocked streets, so many with memories of times past, became souvenirs of places I had lived or visited or simply already been.

And souvenirs become extra baggage when you gather too many in one place.

Tired of being weighed down, I was ready to fly.

So I did.

**

When United Airlines flight 2323 touched down at Charlotte Douglas Airport, I was home.

Later that afternoon, the leasing agent handed me a set of keys to my very first apartment and there, looking out my window as the sun refracted off of the downtown skyline, I realized that I was going to be okay.

Not just okay.

I was ready to become a better me.

And six months later, I can say that I have.

-- K