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What is Discovering Sanctuary all about?!

When I was in my first year at CWU, I started this blog. I don't know exactly what I was looking for then. Maybe I was looking for familiarity (because blogging is something I've been doing since I was thirteen and I was completely on my own for the first time ever), maybe I was looking for a way to remember what it felt like to be truly on my own for the first time, maybe I was doing what I'm still trying to do: live life passionately.

More than anything, I want to show people that passion is possible. You can find it in people and places and things. In every breath you breathe. That's what this blog is about: finding passion, taking chancing, and appreciating the little things both in travel and in life.

To find passion, you have to find feeling.
Sometimes to find feeling, you have to face your fears. That's what I'll be doing and documenting in the next ten years.

When I was turned twenty, I looked at the bucket list I've been compiling since I was thirteen and decided that I wanted to complete it. The longer I looked at it though, the more I realized that it wasn't just a bucket list. It was literately a list of everything I'm afraid of. So I decided that I wanted to dedicate the next ten years of my life to being terrified but trying new things anyway. In the next ten years, I plan to face the following ten fears:

1. SURPRISES/SPONTANEITY

Have a surprise party thrown for me.

Go into an airport and buy a ticket for a random flight.

Throw a dart at a map and go there.

Say "yes" for an entire day.

Spend the night in a haunted house.

2. SPIDERS

See all seven continents.

Go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

3. FAILURE

Write a book.

X Get my license.

Learn the constellations.

Learn to speak another language fluently.

Learn to play piano.

5. COMMITMENT

Write a letter to myself and open it in 10 years.

Read all 7 Harry Potter books.

Stop biting my nails.

Receive 365 letters in a year.

Climb a mountain.

Read 365 books in one year.

Write on the Before I Die wall in New Orleans.

Build an igloo.

Build a tree house.

6. SPIRAL STAIRCASES

Climb to the top of a lighthouse.

7. DROWNING

Learn to surf.

X Go swimming in the ocean at night.

Go skinny dipping.

Go cliff diving.

X Go snorkeling.

Jump off a waterfall.

Rope swing into the water.

Walk on a frozen lake.

Ice-skate on a lake.

7. CHANGE

Teach abroad.

Visit all 50 states.

Go backpacking across Europe.

Hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

8. TRUST

Go on a camping trip with friends.

Ride in a hot air balloon.

Fall in love.

Go to a psychologist.

9. BECOMING AN ADDICT

Celebrate Mardi Gras in the New Orleans and France.

Become a Buddhist.

Go into a bar.

10. LETTING GO

Try karaoke.

Have a mud fight.

Swing from a chandelier.

X Ride a mechanical bull.

Put a secret in a balloon and let it go.

Send a letter to a random address and see if someone replies.

See a tornado.

Watch a storm from a beach.

Throw paint filled balloons at canvas.

X Hang a dream catcher above my bed.

X Go sky diving.

Have a massive water balloon fight.

Go bungee jumping.

Have a water balloon fight with paint-filled balloons.

Dance in the rain.

Send a message in a bottle.

Go paint balling.

This list will continue to change over the next few years. I might take things off, I'll definitely be adding things to it, and I'll for sure be putting up pictures as I finish them. Who knows what it'll look like by the time I turn thirty.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]!