There's not much I regret, but among the few things I do — spending my early 20s holding off on things I wanted to do until I had the perfect bf. Far too much undone, time wasted. Thankfully still not all that much bc I was very busy building my career. But by the time I...

was 25, I ended up in Utah and fell deeply in love and it clicked that I could go hike alone for hours and hours in the woods. So I did. And then did that in CO, WY, MT, and now I'm adding to that list. You can do what you want, and you can do it alone.

Even now when I do date, I kind of go on the assumption that things won't work, but it would be nice if they do. And obv I hope for the best. So even when I'm dating, I'm planning trips 6-9 months out for just me, booking tiny hotels, flights.

But as great as my dad was in trying to drive out fairy tales when I was a little girl, that shit gets stuck in your brain from just about everywhere in society. But touching the Wasatch was a new height of my independence, even though I was super sick that trip ...

and didn't get nearly as much hiking as I wanted in. Just seeing something so unbelievable and beautiful and powerful that I could conquer — I wanted it.

That real independence and joy in solitude comes from doing something that means something to you. And I've always been pretty independent and self-reliant, but alpine hiking was the next level of that for me.

So if you're worried by doing the special stuff now, you won't have something special to share when you meet the one when you're 25, 35, or 45, think of all you can share with them when you do by doing now and all the new stuff you'll do because of all you did