It happened. I turned the Great 5-0! What an amazing day/week. I felt the love from folks that truly mattered. I had visits from cousins, gifts and lunch with some amazing ladies. For the first time in my life, I arranged my own birthday lunch. I knew who I wanted there and it all shook out exactly as it should. The love and light was very evident that day!
For my first 50.4.50, I conquered a long time fear. It has taken me fourteen years to complete the hike that I have always started to do but never finished because of a raw fear of heights. It is the Stewart Falls hike in the Sundance Resort here in Utah. You take the chairlift up one way and the beginning of the hike has you clinging to the side of a mountain with shear drops on one side. I had attempted this several times before and just could never do it. That day I made a choice, I could go back up the way we came and take the chairlift down or I could continue on straight into my fear. I had my son with me and the thought that he would see his mom back out on this hike because of a fear was just no longer an option to me. I wanted to show him and myself that I could feel my fear and do it anyway. As I hiked along, clinging to any root or tree that would hold me, the F#$% word was flying through my mind. Why the F#$% did I agree to do this? How the F#$% am I going to make it around the next bend when it looks like it plummets to the bottom of the earth? These thoughts swirled around and around in my head but all the time I kept going. I had the goal of getting to the meadow where it was told to me that the trail flattened out and the views were gorgeous. The problem was the distance to the meadow that was told to me was actually a crock of shit. It was an incentive by my hiking buddies to get me to forge on. Either way, I completed the hike and the views were well worth it. Stewart Falls is absolutely stunning. After I finished my hike, I was able to kick back on a rock and de-stress with some dark chocolate while watching all the folks that had come up the "easy" way. Boy, they sure don't know what they missed. As I completed my first "new" thing for my new decade, it became apparent to me that I could do this. I can do it and I will. It gave me a sense of purpose and awakened in me all the possibilities of the new things that I can try in my 50th year. Stay tuned for the next adventure! 
As I close out this post, what is something that you have accomplished where you felt the fear and did it anyway? How did you feel after you pushed through it?
"By letting it go, it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning." - Lao Tzu
Peace Out, P.A. Walker
