Chicago Challenge

“I want to dare to exist, and more than that, to live audaciously, in all my imperfect, lumpy, scarred glory, because the alternative is letting shame win.” ~Shauna Niequist

At the beginning of 2018 I decided that it was time to challenge myself to expand outside my comfort zone. For years I had lived in a PTSD fog and then worked to obtain a very self contained, safe, controlled existence. Now, after finishing years of therapy, I thought I had reached a point on my mental health journey that I could and should push beyond my safe space. As my beloved therapist always said “don’t let your world get smaller.”


I decided to sign up for a Sierra Club volunteer vacation, travelling to a distant place and meeting total strangers. Of course, still needing a safety net, I choose a trip to Chicago where I hoped to meet one of my favorite bloggers. Then I invited another blogger and long time supporter, to join me. Happily they both accepted. Still, I knew I’d be travelling alone, meeting, working, eating and rooming with strangers in a hostel and generally throwing myself into an unknown city and circumstance.

As the trip got closer, I thought I was doing pretty well emotionally but my body said otherwise. My normal resting heart beat of 62 was quickly rising.

Still, I bucked up my confidence and arrived at the airport ready to go. I paid to board early and got my aisle seat but started to twitch when a man a had seen at the airport bar (at 6 am) took the window seat in my row. He then proceeded to order a double screwdriver. Breathe in, breathe out. Fortunately he kept to himself, watching a movie on his tablet and I got through that challenge.


I arrived at the hostel too early to check in but locked up my bags and met The Middle Girl who gave me a glorious tour of the some of the Chicago parks, public art and downtown area and I fell in love with Chicago.

We shared lunch and then headed back to the hostel to meet E and the rest of the Sierra Club group. After introductions and settling into our rooms - a small dorm room with bunk beds - we all went out for a Chicago deep dish pizza dinner. (I love Chicago but I am still a NY thin crust pizza girl) and I managed to get through a dinner with strangers, in my introverted way, with no major anxiety.


Others in our group then went out to a club while E and I returned to our suite, exhausted from the day of travel. There we found a man in the common area apparently our suite mate. Although we asked if he might join the men in our group across the hall, apparently he felt very comfortable in a suite full of women. I did not feel much comfort with him which apparently was quite obvious as he commented on how scared I looked. Damn. Insides went to mush. Challenge fail.


But the rest of the week went smoothly enough with lots of time to get to know E better, enjoying conversations with our 74 year old suite-mates who ran circles around us not only in walking, planting trees and staying up to party long after we’d gone to bed. We also did lots and lots of sightseeing,

And I even forced myself to go on the Ferris wheel

But the highlight of the trip was that The Middle Girl once again joined me and E to tour the Chicago Art Institute and its amazing collection of impressionists.

Overall I’d say the trip was a major success for me. Besides from meeting two of my favorite bloggers whom I am very honored to call friends, I think I handled the challenges fairly well which will only build my confidence going forward. There were certainly moments of discomfort and anxiety, sometimes having to retreat to a hallway bathroom (the only private space in the hostel) to get myself re-centered, but all that therapy and training got me through them. And having a black belt roommate didn’t hurt either.


Many thanks to Chicago and The Middle Girl and E for helping make my world a little larger.