This time in 2019, I brought in the first months of the New Year in a BIG way.

This time in 2019, I brought in the first months of the New Year in a BIG way.

A way so BIG that I have trouble matching its intensity and satisfaction. While my friends were drunkenly celebrating the ball drop that signifies another rotation around the sun I was emerged in solo travel. In the months previous I had made my much-anticipated move to Rishikesh, India.

You could find me in the Himalayan foothills admiring the banks of the River Ganga and working with girls whose stories inspired me to my core. Every day was an opportunity for expansion and bravery. And yes, crossing the insanely busy street to get to the fruit stand that sells those mangos I love does count as bravery.

I remember my first few months back in the states not being quite like I imagined they would be. While doubled over with food poisoning in a New Delhi hotel room I had clearly envisioned the ecstasy I would feel when taking that first drink of tap water in my childhood home or driving myself to the coffee shop.

Well, it didn’t feel like that. It felt hallow. Like the thing I had been chasing brought me right back to where I started. I was jobless and waiting for opportunities to be brave that just didn’t quite reveal themselves.

Fear of the future consumed me. I had uncovered a more true version of myself during my time spent solo. I was intuitive and let go of anxiety. I realized that life was much bigger than me as I looked into the eyes of mothers who struggled to protect their children from frostbite.

I wanted to invite this new brave version of myself into my Western life, but was there room?

Every day, this person seemed to get a little bit farther away. With each conversation about $20,000 engagement rings and American politics, I lost touch with the grounded person I came to know in India.

I wish I could tell you that I went abroad, had an Eat Pray Love moment, and changed my way of living effortlessly and entirely. That just didn’t happen. I am still the me who struggles to remain patient on staff calls and examines my existence with little grace.

While I can sit comfortably in fear brought on by speeding down a busy Indian road in a motor rickshaw that is dodging livestock, I struggle to look at my life now and ask if I would have been proud of it in 2019.

Today bravery looks different for me. It means conquering baby step after baby step as I move toward a life and career that allows me to find myself back working with Indian women and girls. It means focusing in on what I truly want and not what’s convenient.

I welcome a year filled with lots of fear because only then will I get to again grow familiar with this chai-drinking brave soul.