Victory Soap v. 2.0

I guess it's the meme or something of the week -- now Steve H. is writing about how some people are so averse to risk that even the most ordinary action, one normal people would think nothing about doing -- such as getting in one's own car and driving to another city -- becomes cause for alarms, imaginary fears, and exaggerated warnings.

I know what he means about having those closest to you hold you back and down because of their own psychological problems and lack of initiative. In fact, I had gone far down the road of becoming one of those people myself by the time I broke free of the (mostly imaginary) hold that was on me and left Miami, the city I was born and raised in and had lived in for twice as long as I wanted to. In the space of about a year I had uprooted myself to another city, had my first Relationship™, went back to community college, ended my first (and I decided, only) Relationship™, and moved out on my own to my first real apartment (the squalid efficiency I lived in like a mushroom for nearly ten years in Miami didn't count). And from that time up to now I bought a new car and drove by myself from Orlando, Florida to Lexington, Kentucky to see U2 (this is still the most adventurous thing I have done besides finally leaving Miami -- though I was a grown woman I had never made a trip out of state by myself), graduated from community college with an Associates Degree while supporting myself with student loans and a part-time job, enrolled in university, then quit the part time job, ended up being unemployed longer than I thought and had to leave my apartment and move in with friends for a while, got a new job within the week and another apartment within a couple of months, had my car reposessed (oops!), learned the bus routes from home to work, and stayed alone in my apartment through Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne.

Of course, maybe none of that sounds particularly adventurous, but if you could see the little timid, dull creature I used to be you would be amazed. I am slowly returning to the self-sufficiency and -- not fearlessness, but divested of imaginary fears -- self that I was meant to be. And I've been pretty good at avoiding the "you can't do that!" people. Unless it's against the law or physically impossible, of course I can Do That.