Remember when I said I was going to get back out there and live?

OK, backstory – I’ve got a friend, Natasha, who’s a year younger than me and who grew up in the house that is directly behind my parents’ house. I’m not going to say that we were best buddies growing up; and to be honest, if it wasn’t for Facebook, I probably would have no idea where she was. But the magic of Facebook got us back in contact a few years ago and we discovered that we share a lot of the same philosophy about life now that we’re adults.

Well, she lives in Germany now and has mentioned more than once that I should come visit her this summer. She knows nothing about my cancer because honestly, I haven’t shared it with many people who don’t see me on a regular basis. And I haven’t physically seen her since the last day of my senior year in high school… But we’ve been chatting pretty often now and she made it pretty clear that we could probably go have some fun roaming around Berlin and Munich.

So today, I decided to check out some airfares, you know, just for fun. Of course, I’ve been also reading lots of websites about Scandinavia too because I never got over to that area during my summer European backpacking adventure. I was poor as hell back then and the hostels were twice as much as other areas of the continent. But I’ve always wanted to go to Tivoli Gardens and maybe see a fjord or two…

And lo and behold, I managed to find a fairly cheap round-trip airfare from Austin to Copenhagen. For an hour, I agonized over whether I should book it. But then I had an epiphany. I got an incredible second chance when this cancer was found early. The next time, I might not be so lucky. I need to seize opportunities to do things that make me happy. I’ve told myself that I needed to get back out and see the world. I promised myself a few months ago that I would be Nicole again – adventurous, impulsive, curious, and exploratory…

So, I grabbed my credit card and filled in the payment details quickly so I wouldn’t back out. And now I am going to do more than plan my “maybe some day” trip to the Nordic world. I’m going to be planning my “at the end this summer” trip to Scandinavia. I have a goal now to continue to keep getting myself healthy and build my strength back up. Look, I don’t know what the future holds for me cancer-wise; but I do know that my future now includes 2 weeks in Europe at the end of the summer.