Happy Thanksgiving to my small, but devout, blog audience. If you’re reading this, I am thankful for you.

But this week in yoga class, my teacher offered us a vast and daunting realm in which to also be thankful: that which challenges us. Because, as she stated so simply, that which challenges us also transforms us. And she is right. When I examine the pillars of my being and the strength I am proud to call mine, I didn’t claim it by walking down an effortless yellow brick road. I claimed it (and am still claiming it) by attempting to negotiate what is difficult and what is vital. Often, I’ve found, things one and the same.

Here are some of those things.

BEING ON MY OWN
I thought this was something I’d been doing for years. I went away to college, then to Chicago, then lived alone for 5 years. I won my own jobs, took myself to doctors appointments, cooked all my own meals. I struggled with the resentment of having to do all that and the pride of being able to. And then I moved to Wyoming and thought it would just be extra miles down this path I’d already forged. But its not, really. Its a brand new path. It’s pulling out every tool I have, its redefining every rule of the road. But its also expanding the literal and figurative map of the places I can go.

ABANDONING THE NORM
I really underestimated the convenience of having things in front of me and just doing them. If you wake up every morning at 7 am and don’t get home until 6 pm, that’s the majority of your day you can go ahead and classify as productive. Those are hours where your mind has a set agenda. To be in a place where convention doesn’t hold up, where people govern themselves by different agendas and productivity scales, that inspires me. But it also poses huge questions to which I don’t yet have the answers. What are the new things that will occupy my time, my mind, which will make my life full. I really– don’t know yet.

FACING BIG FEARS
My greatest fear in leaving Chicago was that this grand experiment “wouldn’t work”. But now I think its more why it wouldn’t work, and the personal fault I would take in that. I can’t be sure that I’ll really find my footing out here career wise. Or that my first winter won’t render me defeated. Or that I’ll find the meaningful, trusting relationships that I need and desire.

Moment of Gratitude: I could never not appreciate the people and experiences in Chicago and everyplace I’ve called home before whose grace has, for a time or for always, rendered the above qualms obsolete. But still– there is this journey that is vital to us. Because we know the risk that comes in not taking risks. Because we have ambition beyond the status quo.  And because we want to transform.