As I sit on my old roommate’s couch, in my soon-to-be old apartment, I stare at the picture frames, folded curtains and blankets, and furniture that has made my home what it has been for the past two years.

My collection of Anthropologie mugs and bowls are wrapped in grocery bags in a beat-up box and my clothes are folded in duffel bags and stacked in laundry baskets. My walls are bare, my floors are dusty and I can’t stop staring at the massive hole in the wall from a failed attempt to hang a picture frame last year.

In a matter of 24 hours, I was offered an internship in San Francisco, accepted said opportunity, gave notice to each of my jobs, and booked my flight across the country to begin a new chapter, the beginning to the rest of my life (at least for the next five months). Excited? Undeniable. Proud? Absolutely.

Terrified? You bet.

This fear is the kind I have been craving for years. It is the “lift off” into the air, the break in cyclic patterns and the most refreshing emotion of discomfort I could have asked for. It is a fear that makes me feel fully alive, stepping into the fire of my own existence.

It’s funny when you pack up your life, quit all of your responsibilities and give yourself the permission to begin new; suddenly, you begin to see that things really can be this simple and that the results align with goals as intention prospers and indecision dissipates. The second I started to give up needing to control every aspect of my life, the second things started to miraculously fall into place. Maybe miracles are really just the results of powerful intention in action.

Maybe the miracle is that I am scared out of my mind and instead of running from it, or hiding under the blankets of my anxiety, I am gracefully beginning to take flight—one packed box of blankets at a time.

In my last post, I wrote a love letter to 2013, thanking it for the pain it helped me to feel that I know was necessary in order to feel this vivacious state of fear. This fear is not the passive kind that I have allowed to take over my soul for as long as I can remember; this fear is pure—and with every quiver, I smile, with an internal confidence; a voice telling me yes, you’re heading down the right path, because it scares you.

The packing is over, the moving is yet to begin, and the settling, well, who knows when that will happen. The source of any miracle is that it stems from an ability to feel self-love, confidence, and trust—the miracle is in the letting go of the past, being with the present and acknowledging what is possible ahead. The process may be terrifying, but has anything worthy ever surfaced without a struggle or a step outside the comfort zone?

Goodbye Cleveland, I will miss you…  Adventure Awaits.

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Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo:  Monika Kostera (urbanlegend)/Flickr