So I’m doing something amazing tomorrow…I’m going overseas. In the beginning of the year, I sat down and threw out a number of things that I would like to do this year; things that I thought would be great goals to shoot for. One of those was travelling overseas. There were a number of places on the list; places where I have friends and thought ‘It would be nice to get out there and visit them’. But when I made the list, in all honesty, I wasn’t quite sure if I would actually follow through with it.

One of my friends told me that my problem is not that I don’t have the skills, the determination, or the ability to do things, it’s simply that I don’t believe I have them. Another friend told me, a long time ago, that I’m like a black sheep that’s pretending to be a regular sheep but the regular sheep know that I’m a black sheep. Another friend told me “to know me, is to love me”. All these proclamations of who I am, all pointing at the same thing: self-acceptance.

Growing up, self-acceptance was not something that I was pushed to have. Self-doubt makes a capable person more willing to try to achieve the unreasonable expectations of others. A person who believes in themselves moves at their own pace and pushes towards the things that they want where as a person filled with self-doubt is patient and willing to put others’ agendas above their own. I’m that happy confused mixture of self-doubt with self-acceptance, confidence, and boldness when under attack, but leave me to my own devices and well, sure.

This year is different, this was/is the year I set out to break those habits. Where I give up on the self-doubt and start going for what I want. And I have. If you’re ever in Detroit, come to Live Cycle Delight and see when I’m on the schedule and we can do some indoor cycle together and go chat it up afterwards. I’m finishing up my second house. I’m pushing forward in my career. I’m making big travel moves recently completing an awesome trip to Seattle, a place directly north of the location in my soon-to-be first published book. And now, I’ll be gracing the international stage heading over to Europe where I’ll be blogging and video and photo journaling. (Follow TMK Project on Facebook to catch some of the views.)

I’ve been pushing forward and upward and setting aside the numerous minor obstacles that I would normally let stop my plans. Money, work, adopted obligations. Life is for living. What am I doing all this work for? Getting up two hours early to get to a job where I often stay late every day of the year. For what?

I’ve often dreamed of the life that I could live. Sitting on Italian beaches or on a boat traveling through the streets of Venice, sitting next to Humphrey Bogart at The Americana in Casablanca, planning on how to take over the world from a London flat with Ashley Walters as we sip on Hennesy and talk about how things used to be. (#NetflixBinge). But now we’re here. We don’t have to dream no more. We don’t have to sit on the side and hope and wish no more. The time is now.

As I sit here and wrap my head around the amazing friends I’m going to get to see at their homes and how I’ll finally get to experience their culture and meet their friends and live the lives that they are accustomed to, I look back to D’Marco 5 years ago, who sat at a bar and said “Woe is me, I’ll never get to see the world.” Late nights at Bronx Bar with friends known and unknown talking about my small city when there is a whole big world out there. I feel like Stoop Kid in Hey Arnold when, Arnold finally gave Stoop Kid the confidence to get up off the stoop. Or to give a French example, Amelie’s father who is a shut-in who finally decides to get up and leave the house when  he receives postcards showing his gnome out there travelling the world.

The time is now and self-acceptance is a process, but confidence is built one step deeper into your fears and anxiety. That area where the darkness turns to gray until you realize that there is no actual boundary from your comfort zone and the dreams that you would like to live except for the one in your mind. Thursday morning, I’ll be entering that zone.

Look forward to more blogging as I photo journal and video blog this trip. Also check out my Facebook if you would like to suggest places I visit or things for me to see or if you want to just meet up, talk, whatever.

D’Marco
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