Outside the windows of Gladstone’s Seafood Restaurant, the sun sank slowly beneath the horizon.  As I watched it spill a streak of gold across the ocean, I reminded myself that I lived here now, in LA.  I hoped that the reminder would bring me a thrill.  Instead I felt my heart turn to brick and drop into my stomach.

My parents’ and brother’s conversation bubbled over the lobster on the table before us, and while I tried to chime in with them, I found myself distracted by the knowledge that in less than 24 hours, my parents would be gone.  They would return to a warm and familiar home, leaving me alone in a wide-open, unknown city, with nothing to spur me on but vague ambitions.

And that’s what they were, truth be told—vague ambitions.  At the age of 23, I left the Midwest and moved to Los Angeles on the high of everyone else’s dreams—inspired by my brother’s success on the crew of a television show, by my friend Drew’s blossoming acting career, by my friend Ashley’s wild ambitions as she prepared to move to LA herself.  When my parents drove away the next morning, all I had was leftover fried shrimp in the refrigerator, a room piled over in half-unpacked boxes, and the heart-dropping knowledge that I was far away from everything I knew, clumsily pawing at dreams that weren’t necessarily mine.

The truth was, I wasn’t sure what my own dreams were.

Somewhere in that muddled era between childhood and adulthood, I had misplaced myself . . . or rather, I should say, I had denied myself, and in doing so, I had lost touch with my most honest dreams, with the things I genuinely wanted.  In my effort to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend, a good student, a good girlfriend, I molded myself around what I believed to be the expectations of those around me.  And in an effort to appeal to my own vanity, I tried to bend and conform to the images I wanted to convey.  It wasn’t about putting up false fronts.  But it was about discarding the parts of myself I felt would have less appeal to those around me.  This was how I came to be uncertain of the lines between my dreams and everyone else’s, between who I was and who I wanted to appear to be.  And this was why getting away from home . . . from all of those roles I had created for myself . . . was what I needed most.

I began to reclaim my life in small ways.  I drove Los Angeles freeways in bold defiance of my old assumption that freeways were too terrifying a challenge for a girl as timid as I was.  I dated fellows casually and just because, ignoring old advice that I was strictly a “serious relationship type of girl.”  I selected the company I kept based on the type of energy I wanted around me, rather than clinging to every social opportunity out of fear of isolation.

Before long I was speaking my mind, putting my foot down, celebrating long-neglected interests, and making career choices that I once would have considered too bold for “someone like me.”  I began to fully recognize who I was and what I wanted.  And at long last, I was claiming my life as my own.  Other people could influence it.  Outside forces could certainly slow me down, turn me around, bring me to a full stop and force me to reevaluate.  But it was—it is—still my life.  And I choose.

Once I learned to see life that way, I began to make things happen.  With each new challenge, I keep myself motivated by remembering that I am in control of my life’s direction.  And there is nothing more thrilling than the prospect of living the life I choose.

This is why I’m so excited to be a part of Scinti, where we can all gather together to be inspired by one another’s wisdom and to learn from one another’s discoveries as we venture on toward the lives we choose.  So let’s start here, shall we?  Where are you coming from? What is propelling you forward?

Do tell.