Challenge Milly

It's surprisingly easy to get stuck in a rut. One minute you're graduating from uni, practically exploding with excitement at the sheer number of overwhelming options that lie before you, then you blink and suddenly you're 33, ludicrously unfit and all you've really done for the past few years is work, worry about things and spend most of your remaining waking hours sprawled on a sofa watching (admittedly awesome) TV. Well, that was what happened to me anyway.

I hadn't really had the usual female reaction to turning 30, possibly because my child-free, self-employed lifestyle has always been so blissfully immature that the passage of years doesn't really bother me much, but by late January something was nagging at me. I'd just been discharged by my therapist, which was a milestone in itself, when something dawned on me: I'd made it. I was alive. But I wasn't really LIVING. I knew that I didn't used to be like this, but somehow I'd got myself to a place where I'd been content to just exist... and I couldn't remember how long I'd been like that.

This wouldn't do at all. It was time for a new Milly. A less scared, less self-judging Milly. ADVENTURE MILLY.

So, very, very slowly, I started to make changes to my life that'd help me become the person that I wanted to be. As most of my therapy had revolved around issues of self-esteem and fear, the tweaks had to be gradual in order to give my brain a chance to process everything, but I knew it'd take something big to push me over the edge into fearlessness and real, no-holds-barred Living. 

Then that 'no makeup selfies' thing happened. I'll admit, it annoyed me (mainly because at the start most people weren't actually donating or even posting instructions on how to donate), but it also made me want to do something myself. Something bigger. I'm not the kind of person who asks for favours from others very often, if at all, but I figured that I needed to do something really scary if I was going to ask my friends for money during a recession so I went with the thing that scared me the most: heights. I did my first ever skydive on the 7th of May this year (raising over £3,000 in the process!) and how much I enjoyed it completely took me by surprise. It wasn't that I wasn't scared, I was ruddy terrified, but I suddenly remembered that I LIKE being scared. I like challenging myself and pushing my own boundaries and I hadn't done that in far, far too long.

I've decided that this year is going to be the year that I start trying new things again. The skydive gave me the balls I needed to finally book in for the flying lesson that my Mum had bought me for my birthday way back in February, I completed it this morning and it was badass beyond words. But what next? I refuse to go back to being the old Milly.

So... it's time to Challenge Milly. Think of it like 'Challenge Anneka', only without the studio audience, the researchy bookpeople or the running around in highly flammable shellsuits. I need ideas for new, weird and wonderful stuff to try. It could be something small (like trying a new food) or something massive (like... I don't know... wrestling a bear? FYI I'm definitely not going to wrestle a bear). It could be creative, scary, silly or delicious. It could be something I can do at home, something Midlands-based or something way more far-flung. Chuck any suggestions at me that you think might be interesting and all the best, non-filthy ones will be compiled into a list of Things I Intend to Accomplish This Year.

There you go. Have at it. CHALLENGE ME. I dares ya.

Milly x

Diving from the sky!

Post-skydive, with my awesome instructor, Geoff.

I just landed a ruddy PLANE!

Post-flight, getting my certificate from the lovely Jarno.