I remember this day as if I just lived it. It's the day that I did something big.
Not that traveling was big or anything, but it was big for me at that time. I'd spent the 12 months prior to this day suffering from, and trying to heal, my debilitating anxiety and depression. It had flared up after a bad breakup, and it was wrecking my life completely. I was sick, and unable to handle much, and I was totally fed up with it.
I was finally making headway in therapy, so, when I planned this trip, I had forced myself to ignore all my fears about the unknown. I had never been out of the United States, and I was going to be flying off to a foreign land across the ocean. Everything you could worry about, I did. Excitement always led to nervousness. The truth is, excitement and anxiety kind of stem from the same place, and actually feel quite similar. Healthy people can tell the difference between them, but, when you're sick like I was, you can't decipher the good kind of anticipation from the bad at all. So when you feel either of them, you panic.
I had to get myself to the streets of Rome. I had no choice despite the ridiculous and unnecessary terror I felt inside. To do this, I forced myself to be tougher than I ever had and ignored my brain completely. Every time an anxious incorrect thought popped into my head, I said, "I don't care. I doooooon't caaaaaaaare. I'M GOING."
As a result, I found myself walking down cobblestone streets in an ancient city, admiring potted plants crowding the building fronts in their own way of taking back the earth that has been paved over for centuries, and feeling like my own damn hero.
And you know what? I was. This is the day I became my own hero. I knew that I could be tougher than my sick brain. I knew that I had made my dream of walking the streets of Rome come true.
So this, this little moment right here? It's worth more than anything I could buy on this earth.