Making Things Happen 2011

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Yup, I'm feeling the fear right about now. Massively. My hands are literally shaking as I write this post. My stomach is aching because of the masses and masses of butteries in my stomach. I am terrified to post the entry, so much that I have put it off for two weeks- hold on, it's only been two weeks?! I literally just had to check my calendar again.

These two weeks have been the best two weeks of my life. They have been the hardest two weeks of my life. They have been the most productive two weeks of my life, the most nerve wracking two weeks of my life, and the most God loving two weeks of my life. Two weeks ago, even though it feels like so much longer, I attended this little intensive called Making Things Happen.

Let me tell my story about Making Things Happen. The first time I saw their website, read the blogs, looked up past alumni, I thought "Eh, this might be cool, seems a little hokey to me." I found Lara's blog in November, found the MTH blog some how through twitter, and I clicked the link when it said 2011 registration was open. I was curious. Even though the whole thing seemed strange to me, I wanted to see more. So I clicked the link, saw the price, and literally laughed out loud. I clearly remember going, "Yeahhhhh right", closed the tab, and went back to my daily work- which at the time was procrastination, Facebook, whining to Justin, and staying up late.

But no matter how hard I tried, this little #MTH2010 kept appearing on my twitter feed. I honestly could not escape it. It was everywhere. I couldn't go through a single day without seeing that little hash-tag with the letters MTH next to it. Looking back now it was obviously God saying "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU CRAZY LADY!" But I kept on ignoring it.

Finally New Years Eve came around and I was sick as a dog. I had been sick since Christmas Eve from working with Santa at the mall for two months (another fear I'm admitting- I worked as the Santa photographer in the mall. Sue me.) with screaming, illness infected children and every little sickness they had, I had come down with except all at once and about a thousand times worse. So I was at home, miserable, receiving texts from friends all night, and all I could do is sit on the couch and bum around twitter. That's when I saw the MTH official twitter tweet something a long the lines of making things happen in the year 2011. I don't remember exactly, I was really, really sick. But that's when I did it, I signed up, didn't look back, and went to bed terrified.

What had I just done? Did I REALLY just do that? Yes, I did. Why? I had no freaking clue.

So 2011 began. I went to Disney World with Justin and had an amazing time. We got home and January 26 was eleven days away. As each day ended, I was becoming more and more scared. When I left for New York City the night of January 25th, I almost cried. I really, really didn't want to go to this anymore. I was terrified. I didn't know what to expect, what was going to happen, who was going to be there, and knew I was probably going to be the youngest person there. But I went because I knew I had to, something was pushing me to go because I had to.

The next morning I made my way to the Bentley Hotel in the crazy snow. I went up to the room Making Things Happen was being held. I thought I was going to die. My thoughts were "I'm a shy person, how am I ever going to open up? Why oh WHY am I doing this? And thank God there are danishes I am starving!" I made my way into the room and tried to find a seat. Finally someone said, "This seat is free, sit here!" She introduced herself as Lauren and the girl to my left introduced herself as Kathleen. We talked, we laughed, we talked about ourselves. I quickly felt comfortable and finally felt like this is where I meant to be.

Lara, Gina, and Natalie walked in a few minutes later and well... lives were changed. I can't even begin to say what happened. No words can truly explain the pure power, love, and energy that was in that room. Ten hours went by in a flash. During those ten hours I dug deeper into my soul and my heart that I had ever done in the twenty years of my life. I admitted fears I had never told anyone, not even Justin. I felt complete love and encouragement from strangers, and I fell in love with each of them in return. We quickly became each other's biggest fans, cheerleaders, accountability partners, and most importantly FRIENDS. People we can turn to for help, to vent to when we're scared, to push us when we need support.

To my ladies and my gentleman from Making Things Happen New York City... I love you all from the bottom of my heart. I can truly say that each and everyone of you strive me to be the best I can be every day. I look forward to our daily updates, to text messages, emails, and goofy facebook posts. Without our day together, I would never have done everything I have done in the past two weeks. Thank you for absolutely everything!

To Natalie, you inspire me. Thank you for teaching me to just do what I want, to not let anything or anyone hold me back, to go on new adventures, to live every day for God. You are an amazing woman, an amazing wife, an amazing mother, and an amazing friend. You just inspire me daily and I am so thankful to have met you!

To Gina, thank you for reaching out to me. Thank you for wanting to set aside some time to talk with me and help me. You're giving me the time when not a lot of other people have. It reassures me that people do want to help me, people do believe in me, and do want to see me succeed. I can't wait for our Skype date!

And to Lara... You know everything I feel. I've poured my heart out to you so many times in the past two weeks. All I can say is thank you, over and over and over and over. Thank you for this week's challenge, for pushing all of us even after the intensive is over. Thank you for truly loving each and everyone of us. Thank you for being YOU. Thank you for making this happen for me. Just thank you. I love you, we all love you, you can see that love every day just by looking at what we are accomplishing because YOU wanted to make things happen for other people. THANK YOU!

It's the year 2011. This is my year to Make Things Happen. This is my year to believe. Why? My life is too short not to believe.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.
... I felt the fear, I did it anyways. And it feels amazing.