My name is Cara. There is nothing profound about me, I am not some great beauty, or some talented artist. I am not a genius, nor have been through the worst hells imaginable to be chocked full of wisdom and great advice.

I am just like you. An average woman in her mid-twenties, wondering why everyone else seems to have it all figured out. I want to travel, a lot, but a full time job, trying to keep a roof over my head, and the great fear of the unknown keeps me stuck in one place. It’s always that crippling fear of failure that seems to keep most of us rooted to one spot.

I moved from Toronto Ontario, across the country to Vancouver British Columbia December 30th, 2015. My life (as I knew it), utterly fell apart and I found myself at 23 back living at home, jobless, and single when two weeks prior I had been looking at engagement rings, happily employed in the Pharmaceuticals industry and living in Toronto. After months of therapy I had decided to book a one way ticket to Vancouver B.C. and see if I could make a life for myself.

It’s been almost 3 years that I’ve been here now. 3 years of extreme highs and extreme lows. Years of independence, and inner strength (that sometimes fails me). Years of learning that there is no one to come clean up my mess, to make me dinner so I can sob and sulk all night long. I can cry, but I also have to feed myself. I can sulk and let the depression weigh on me like a mountain, but I still have to flip the laundry. Years of growing, learning, struggling, and most importantly of amazing people and adventures.

Now that you know a bit about my background, let me tell you what I’m all about; I’m a tattoo-a-holic, hiking-junkie, that doubles as an ocean-enthusiast, carb-loving, mountain-obsessed, star wars dork who has a hard time putting down a video game controller. A learned extrovert but am introverted by nature. I’m extremely empathetic and have to be careful who I spend my time and energy on, since there are some people that are simply just bad for my  health.

I live with (I refuse to use the term “suffer from”), GAD (General Anxiety Disorder), Social Anxiety, and Depression, or, as I like to call it the Tri-Fecta. As a result I have a lot of self-esteem and self-loathing issues that I am always trying to find ways to combat. Part of this blog will be dedicated to an in-depth account of an average person trying to “live their best life”, with a socially destructive chemical imbalance in their head.