I don't give myself enough credit for the first four decades of my life

Tomorrow my division at work has a retreat.  One of the attorneys I work with is collecting fun facts about my colleagues for some sort of getting to know you game.

I didn't have to think very hard before quite a list of fun facts about me starting flowing through my mind and surprisingly, very few of them are from the last two years.  That's not because I haven't done some amazing and interesting things in the last two years.  It's because in reality, my whole life is filled with interesting ways I have stepped out of my comfort zone and did some pretty cool things.

Here are the two I shared with my colleague:

• I marched in the 1999 London New Year's Day Parade.  (It was with my high school marching band.  I was one of the two color guard captains.)
• I swam with sharks in the Galapagos.  (They were reef sharks so not a real danger but it was so cool.  While others swam away, my reflex was to follow so I could get some good video of them.)

Some other fun facts that ran through my mind

• I studied abroad in Spain and instead of hanging out with all the Americans which would have been far easier, I hung out with the non-American students and formed friendships with people from Japan, Korea, Holland, etc.
• I had my first beer as an 18 year old with my Pastor on a mission trip in El Salvador where at times I was asked to use my basic high school Spanish to help interpret and communicate.
• I have gone solo camping on more than one occasion.
• I did the Polar Bear Plunge in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on a day when the ice they had to cut through in the lake was more than a foot thick.
• Since college, I have picked up and moved cities, essentially starting over, five times including to four different states.

So really the last two years of Improv, African dance, wandering the streets of NYC, exploring Bermuda, moving to a new city completely on my own, getting to know strangers through groups like Time Left or last night's book club, etc. are right in line with who I've always been.  There is no reason I should feel surprised at what I can do.  Maybe my marriage just exhausted me so much and put such a dent in my confidence that I couldn't see myself clearly.  Now that I can, I'm unstoppable.

So what's next on my list?  Edinburgh?  Some more Improv?  The possibilities are endless.