I was born in Savannah, GA in 1986, the youngest child of two NPS park rangers. My parents were about forty years old at the time, and my arrival was a bit of a surprise. They insist it was a welcome one.

I don't remember anything of my first home on Tybee Island, because my family moved to metro Atlanta when I was three. My earliest memories are of the sad pond next to our first house in Georgia. I had a Snoopy fishing pole, with which I caught a decrepit crappie as my first fish, probably as a result of whatever cocktail made that pond so pungent. I haven't been too keen on the sport since.

In 1990, we moved into the house my dad still lives in more than thirty years later. My childhood was pretty good. I had great friends, good schools, two loving parents, and two siblings to torment. For years, I wanted to be an archaeologist, but, as it dawned on me that it would be literally nothing like the Indiana Jones films, I settled on history as a prospective major.

I made excellent grades at university, despite my general anxiety and microscopic attention span. I was schooling part-time and held a decent-paying, full-time job. But that's when it happens, right? A series of demoralizing life events, towards the end of my sophomore year, sent me into a crisis that would ultimately culminate in buying a plane ticket to Istanbul. Quite the impulse for a young, suburban WASP who'd only seen a handful of US states.

This is really where my current story begins.

I didn't really know what to expect.  I'd see some nice things, sure, but I'd come home and everything would be the same. It was a desperation move, a quarter-life crisis, and I was genuinely worried it wouldn't be as cathartic as I imagined.

Even now, over a decade later, I get emotional when I talk about it. I'm so grateful for being so unequivocally wrong. I spent about two months exploring the eastern Mediterranean with a fellow layoff named Rob. *Cliche Warning* There really is no way to describe the kind of power you experience when you travel independently. The best way I can think of is to describe the relationship I had with Rob before and after our adventure. Before we left, we were little more than acquaintances who didn't always get along. It just so happened he was the only person who agreed to join me.

Now, despite the fact that we rarely see each other and took very different paths in life, we can't be in the same room without laughing. We make time, every year, to talk on the phone, update each other on what's changed, and offer genuine, heart-felt encouragement. It's arguably the deepest friendship I've ever had in my entire life, "solely" because of that experience. It's a special kind of love. This was a time before Google Maps, AirBnB, Uber, and all of the other things that make travel such a breeze in the present. We were thousands of miles outside of our comfort zones and only had each other to rely on.

One of the Australians I met in Egypt, on the same trip, messaged me recently to let me know he'd just had his first child and was still waiting for me to visit. We spent less than a week together over twelve years ago. You tell me what that says about travel, because I still struggle to make any sense of it.

It would take several volumes to fully-explain what I mean. Hopefully, I can bring that to you one day. For now, suffice to say, I would spend the next twelve years hunting down those connections all over the world, through dozens of countries on five continents. Everything I've done since is ultimately in pursuit of the next adventure, the next story, the next connection. It never gets old. It never grows predictable. But it always teaches. It always inspires. I'm ideologically unrecognizable from my 25-year-old self.

I kept journals the entire way, and that's what spawned my love of writing. Combined with my obsessive reading habit, it stands to reason that fiction would be where my heart landed. Ironic, really, since my English-teacher mother often assigned me book reports as punishment growing up, provided she could find banal-enough reading material. Jokes on you, Mom.

It was amidst these adventures that I discovered Stoicism. Remember the anxiety I mentioned before? It's a figment of my memory now. I discovered "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius shortly after arriving home from my first trip. His  words made my anxiety feel silly. Fear of death? Illogical. We all die. Instead, be grateful for the opportunity to live. Fear of the future? Illogical. Focus only on what you can control. Worrying about anything outside your ability to control is a waste of energy and your precious time. Don't let others control your emotions. Love yourself, and care not of what others may think of you. Embrace your existential ignorance as the ultimate adventure, the elusive answer to the question "why?" as the great equalizer in a world expected to have all the answers. That isn't to say we should stop looking, but that this quest should never come at the expense of the present. Don't be troubled by imagined, future problems. Take comfort knowing, if and when they arrive, you'll have the same tools at your disposal to deal with them then as you do now. Love those around you, and you'll be loved. Take care of them as you would be taken care of. Take comfort in death, whatever your beliefs, the universal finish line that leads either to paradise or nothingness. We won't care that we are dead, just as we didn't care about existence before we were born.

When I noticed what a positive impact the Stoics were having on my life, I began to coach others in crisis. Like a wave, I watched their anxieties slip away. I've never been a teacher, but the philosophy was effective in its simplicity; relatable and applicable to all. None of this is to suggest an alternative to professional help. On the contrary, professional help is one of the aforementioned tools at our disposal. Sometimes, our perspective on life is the main obstacle to seeking that help, and perspective is Stoicism's gospel. I plan on writing extensively on this subject in the years ahead. 

I live in Colorado now, and I can see Pikes Peak from my backyard. It emerged about fifty million years ago, and it will be there for millions of years after I'm gone. A blink in the eye from the universe's perspective. How lucky am I to have seen it?

Storytelling is my heart. Let me tell you a story.