It has taken two years to get up the courage to start a blog, which, even as I write it, sounds incredibly silly – like saying it’s taken two years to work up the courage to try cotton candy.

But, as someone acutely sensitive to other peoples’ approval and disapproval most of my life, this was a huge leap. A huge step toward vulnerability.

My inner critics have done their best to completely throw me off track, with anxiety (what if people think I’m unintelligent, weak, a horrible writer, a loser), harsh judgment (what makes you think you have something worthwhile to say?) and downright fear (what if you fail at the only thing you’ve ever felt good at?)

Who these voices are and where they come from is the topic for a whole other blog. But suffice it to say, I’ve spent a lifetime running from them. And as the saying goes, wherever I go, there I am, and there they are, too.

So, this is my line in the sand.

I’ve spent the last 35 or so years dissatisfied with who I was – one aspect or another – and trying to find this ephemeral better version of myself. In my quest, I’ve read over 500 books from Anne Lamott to Zig Ziglar. Some were useless, some gave me incredible insights, and a few actually changed my life.

But I didn’t find Debbie.

I didn’t find her in a relationship, at a particular weight, in a career or in hobbies – all things  I thought at one point would be the finish line to happiness.

And finally, after all these years, it occurred to me that I didn’t need to find myself, I needed to free myself. And that’s what this is all about.