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(warning: wall of text ahead. TL;DR towards the bottom) It's the new year and time for resolutions for 2015. I don't have any. I don't want any. This makes me super happy. Over the past months, I've done lots and lots of thinking. I've hated myself, berated myself, been unhappy and grumpy and generally rather bitter. This has changed. I honestly did not think I'd recover from being dumped. I never admitted how deep it ran, except to myself. I fell from a depression I wouldn't admit to myself into a deep, dark pit and it felt like I'd never get out of it again. As if I had lost my reason to live, and most definitely my will, and as if I had lost everything I was supposed to have, to be, to become. On new year's eve, just after midnight, I stood in a cold vineyard overlooking the valley that I grew up in, with a few friends that I barely had any contact with over the last years and it came to me. I was happier than I was in that same moment the year before. 2014 was pretty bad for me. It came with so many trials that I never thought possible. But it also gave me something very important: My lost sense of self. I spent the last 3 years planning for a future that I now will not have. I will not grow old and grumpy with my ex-boyfriend. I will not move into this apartment that I'd already furnished in my head. I will not live in that city. I will not cook tasty food for us. And you know what? I couldn't be happier about it. Somewhere along the way, I lost myself. I became part of a couple, as everyone in a relationship does, but the rest of my life just stopped. Gradually, maybe, not all at once. But it happened. I had no social life. I had nothing just for myself. I had no present. I planned for a future where things would be better, but this future never came. And the loss I suffered when I got dumped was magnified a hundredfold because of the loss of this future that was so bright, but would never be. So I'm done with planning. I'm done with being bound to things, with worrying about a future that - let's face it - will always be different than what you imagine. Which doesn't exactly work with a challenge, or so I thought, and was prepared to sit this one out, maybe stop challenging myself. But something I've not lost is my love for this community. And I think my hesistancy to plan is why my recent challenges weren't as successful as they should have been. So I'm going a different route this time. I'm daring myself to be free, and I hope you guys will help me along. If you've followed my last challenge, you'll know that I've started online dating. IT IS SO MUCH FUN. There's one guy in particular that I've been hanging out a lot with. He's American, so I get to speak English with him (which is awesome and surreal) and he's a total gentleman and makes me feel so super date-ish. I'm not sure how to describe it, but he holds doors open, pays for drinks and it just feels like 'real' dating. Maybe because he's American and dating is so much more common over there than it is here, I don't know. Anyways! On one of our first dates, I told him about how I'm doing this whole dating thing not because I'm looking for a relationship, but because I'm shy, and I have anxiety, and it makes me incredibly nervous to meet strangers in a setting like this (or any other settings for that matter). We got to talking about different things to do, and I compared it with challenges. He was confused so I told him about NF and just now it hit me - this is perfect as a challenge to celebrate my freedom instead of planning. We came up with a few challenges, but I want moar. I don't want to go to the gym 3 times a week, eat healthy and lose 5 pounds by the end of the challenge. I don't want any goals, and I don't want any plans to get where ever. Right now, I don't even want to know what my life will be like 6 weeks from now! I'm drunk on freedom, on new experiences and challenges that I never thought I'd have. And I love it. Will you dare me to be free? To try new things and have fun? (TL;DR:) Here's how this works: I made a spreadsheet, you can find it right here. This spreadsheet has two columns. The first one is for your name. The second one is for your dare. This will be my challenge. I don't have to do a certain number of dares every day or week, I'll just have this list of adventures that I can work on whenever I want a taste of new experience. They should be life-related, obviously. Freedom-related, if you will. They can be about fitness as well though. They can be things that challenge me and make me uncomfortable as well as things that reward me just because I deserve it, not because I've done anything special. I'm posting my current, incomplete (because my brain cannot keep track of things!) list of challenges to give you a bit of an idea of what this is all about. But honestly? Dare me to do whatever! Worst case scenario it'll take me some time to get yours done. You guys are all made of awesome and I cannot wait to see what you've got in store for me. Incomplete list of challenges: - be tipsy with someone and take the train home - finally go for a run again - get a brazilian - go on a date with someone new - go to the gym and work out, don't just watch and gossip! - go to the Therme (Roman nude bath) - get a facial - spend the night somewhere, no matter where so long as it's not home - go to a swinger club, not to participate but just to see what it's all about* - splurge on awesome lingerie for the above - kiss someone - go dancing - have an epic mind-slam of big topics and ideas with someone I can disagree with - get a passport - travel. somewhere. anywhere (this is the only one where planning counts! as I won't have any time off during the course of this challenge) - write a slam poem. share it. This definitely isn't all that I want to do. But it's definitely some of the stuff I want to do. I'll put that on the spreadsheet, and I hope that you guys will add more to my list. Also, since this is so text-heavy and there's not a single gif, please feel free to add those to my thread as well. (*this is a bit of a long story, and it's one of those challenges that makes me incredibly uncomfortable because that's way outside my comfort zone. But the thing is - I currently know someone that goes to this club, and what better time to have a look than now, when I'm not bound to anything or anyone and all about learning new things? Maybe I'll tell the whole story sometime in the course of this challenge!)