On Leaving One's Comfort Zone.

And going to Baltimore.

Not that Baltimore is outside my comfort zone, I have a crush on that city.

But in order for me to go there I had to climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow.....well you get it.

I had to take a lot of public transportation.  At rush hour.

And if any one remembers, it was just last year I got over my fear of the metro, flying, and other methods of transportation that were not in my control.

In other words, everything but walking, riding in cars with friends or taking my little local bus.

But luckily I had spent the past year forcing myself past these self induced fears.

And with every trip I took, came the courage to take another.

So if the only way I could see my ex, Tony, with his partner and their two children. Nora, two days short of her third birthday, and the new 8 month old Sam, who had  all flown in from Oregon for a week of friends and family time in Pennsylvania was to meet halfway in Charm City, the mountain would move.

It took a bus to the metro, 2 different subway trains at rush hour,( a totally new adrenalin rush for me) and then the comfort of Amtrak to get me there. A cab ride to the Inner Harbor and there they were.

And it was worth every flicker of uncertainty. 

When I told one of my workmates where I had gone yesterday, she listened with her mouth open.

This is not the Jane I know, she said.

But it's the Jane I used to know, years ago, when every day was a possible adventure, when life was experienced first hand, not just through a book or a movie.  When the whole world was my garden.

So I'm bringing her back.

She's more fun.

xo J