How it all began 

Minus a Plus One has been on my heart since my first big breakup in October of 2010. I’d spent the last 3 years of my life with the man I was convinced I was going to marry. I ‘we’d my way through every conversation, my identity ingrained in him. “We” can meet you for a drink. “We” are heading back home to see my family. “We” will see if we are free.

I was lost as I struggled to pick up the pieces after we parted ways that Fall, the once clear picture of the rest of my life no longer valid. I threw myself into all the things I’d held back on when dating him – the biggest being travel. I made a promise to use my passport every year as long as I could for the rest of my life.

I’ve stood on every continent since that vow. In 2012 I moved to Seattle and stepped into a world of travel that ended with me standing on all seven continents in seven years. I have been to 20 countries and counting and moved my life twice from one end of the country to nearly the other. The years that have passed in between have surprised me in the most unanticipated and incredible ways.

I pursued dreams I didn't realize I had and pushed boundaries I once stood so far away from I didn’t know they existed.

I loved fiercely in the years that followed my first break up. Not so much the man of my dreams I longed for, but cities, experiences, friendships and family. I found my life filled not by a specific person who gave me their last name, but by a collection of hearts who opened themselves to me at my best and my worst.

 I let someone hold my heart for a moment simply because of his sheer kindness and the fact I felt someone finally saw me. Really saw me. I ignored the near impossible between us in childlike optimism of 'anything could happen' because sometimes we forget that it can.

I'd be a liar if I said I'm not still searching, but in the midst of this great game of "when and who" I found so much more life than I ever would have.

As it turns out, sometimes when you've settled for 'good enough' you might just be missing out on spectacular.

Because I didn't marry the man I thought I would, I held orphans in Africa. I have a butt shot with a hippo named Hippy. I drank in the wonder of Machu Picchu and truly learned what it meant for the journey to surpass the destination. I shared a tent with a stranger in Peru and forged a friendship strong enough to join him on an adventure to Patagonia.

I've triple planked in front of the Del Torres Pines and walked across a glacier in Chile and came home with a parasite.

I've seen a Thai sunset and lost my breath as it sank behind the ocean. I kissed an elephant and slept in a room full of strangers who drank away the reality of unwashed sheets and mattress in the middle of a village in a jungle.

I've slept in villages in Vietnam and ate fish whole with a local family as I shared their table. I learned to cross their streets full of motor bikes and chaos and felt my heart break at the history between their country and mine.

I made love to a near stranger who captivated me in a way I couldn't comprehend long after he returned to his country and I to mine.

I've made mistakes and forged regrets but through it all, I lived a life I'd never know was possible. I’ve been wrong enough times I’ve learned not to always be right, but to be open. I’ve made calculated steps to keep growing; challenging my comfort zone repeatedly in the process.

I’ve drank my weight in beer in Munich for Oktoberfest, a place I’m convinced is one of the happiest on Earth for adults. I applauded with strangers as the sun sank below the sea in Greece and cried my way through nearly the entire production of Les Miserables in London.

After years of healing I finally whispered I love you to another man. And like many other times before, watched that relationship fail thereafter. Again I shattered. And again I rebuilt.

I was introduced to anxiety in that relationship. It was slow and unsuspecting at first and then it consumed me, like water rising up inch by inch unnoticed until it was too late and I went under. It took time, therapy, patience, and support to pull myself out.

I climbed a sand dune in the middle of the Sahara Desert in the months following that breakup and felt whole again for the first time since letting him go. A stranger captured a photo of me and two Aussies pumping our fist victoriously in the air as sand swirled around us, my legs still burning from the incline. It was the moment when I knew I’d be okay.

I learned to appreciate a friendship that was offered in lieu of romance when his feelings didn’t match mine, but he honored his word and become a caring friend who loved my heart - even if that love was different than what I’d hoped for.  

I laughed with friends from coast to coast and cheers'd many a beers and looking back finally realize how lucky I am for that day that changed my life, even if I sometimes lose sight of my fortune through different seasons of life.

I learned to travel alone. I learned a whole new level of brave. I spread my arms wide after scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef while sailing back to my hostel full of people from across the world.

I followed my heart all the way to the bottom of the world and fell in love with every step of my journey to my final continent. When no one would come with me, I went alone. I found a group of solo women travelers and signed up alongside them, experiencing mountains of ice and pure white snow with those who wanted to see the world as much as I did.

I kayaked on water smooth as glass, camped overnight in the snow, and polar plunged into frigid Antarctic waters with a stranger who became my person for that moment in time. We stretched our arms wide in the sunlight from the bow of the ship, my hand in a triumphant 5 and hers a 2 as we experienced our 7th continent together.

I also learned to be alone. To find peace outside of adventure and poured my heart into experiences around the world and right outside my front door. I opened my life to a community down the hall who became my family, lending cups of cliched sugar, sharing my table at Friendsgivings, and inviting me to their weddings as they started their next chapters and moved away.

I hugged from the heart, kept secrets and shined my light those who came and went from my life.

The truth is, when I was younger I felt like I was less each time a relationship failed. It took more than a decade to realize living my life on my own terms allowed me to be more.

I started Minus a Plus One because I needed to know it was going to be okay. Not from my mother, happily married since she was 18 to the love of her life. Not from my married friends who haven’t stepped a day into their 30s without their significant other. I didn’t want to hear I’d find it when I was least expecting it, or I was too picky, or I didn’t give people a chance from anyone with anything shiny on their left ring finger.

I wanted to connect with other women with the same fears and vulnerabilities and feel less alone. I wanted to laugh with them and cry with them and break with them. I wanted to encourage them and hold them up and ask them to do the same for me.

For every woman asking why. For every woman asking when. For every woman braving this big beautiful world on her own terms, Minus a Plus One was created for you.