Fearless

I am surrounded by people who are fearless. My husband has skied glaciers. I have a brother who has climbed the ice falls of Everest, a sister who runs ultramarathons around the world, and another brother who packed up everything and drove cross-country with a rickety trailer attached to his bumper ready to dive into a new city and a new job without giving it a thought. There is the nephew who bungie jumped off the 18th story of a high rise and a niece who went skydiving to celebrate turning 21. Two other nephews who got their scuba diving licenses the minute they were legally old enough to do so. And my husband and brother-in-law are currently threatening to dive with sharks in that cold and wicked place in the pacific northwest.

Then there is me. I'm not fearless. I have mountain climbed and rappelled, run the marathon and skied black diamond slopes. But I do it because I refuse to give into the fear rather than because I enjoy it. What I love is living in New York City surrounded by energy and people doing all sorts of things, and I love writing about people who take chances. Call it living vicariously, call it the greatest job ever!, but every day I feel alive walking through the streets of New York, more alive than when I am hanging off a mountain or forcing myself to push off down an impossibly steep slope.