Facebook Status: Monday, November 25, 2013, 10:54 PM

Took a HUGE, GIGANTIC leap of faith today. Probably won’t even recognize how huge until a few days from now. But I can say that I’m incredibly proud of this courageous human being staring back at me who has learned to trust her God and believe in HERSELF.

I wrote this Facebook post the night after I resigned from my last position as a communications manager in DC. I hadn’t slept in 48 hours and my head was spinning. I had NO CLUE of what the next chapter of my life would bring. I was terrified of this huge leap of faith that I made into the unknown without a safety net in sight. I just knew that I had to fulfill my personal dream of creating my life in New York, and in order to get there, I had to JUMP.

I had to JUMP beyond what everyone said about how expensive, cold, dangerous, and hard New York would be. I had to JUMP over my own fears of what people might think about my bright, bold, and intentionally positive personality. I had to JUMP through my fears of living hours away from my friends and family. I had to JUMP because I didn’t want to look back on my life with regret for not leaping into this window of opportunity. I had to JUMP because I wanted to be proud of the woman staring back at me in the mirror every day.

Three years later, I’ve never been more glad that I JUMPED into this chapter of my story.

By now, I thought that the high of getting on the Subway, taking meetings near the Chrysler Building each week, hoping into cabs, going to Broadway plays, and having the honor of working with great people on great books would wear off.

NOT. ONE. BIT.

I cherish each moment of my New York Adventure because I know how hard and how high I had to JUMP to get here. I appreciate my journey because EVERY JUMP, even when some of those jumps became a scrape, a cut, or a bruise, gave me another opportunity to learn, grow, spread my wings, and JUMP again.

When I received the invitation to work with Mr. Harvey and he noted that his next book would be called, JUMP, every fiber of my being vibrated with joy. The concept of this book goes beyond the words on the page—the audacity to JUMP is the TESTIMONY of my life.

While I know myself now as a woman tipping closer to 40 with fuchsia hair who is living out her dreams in Brooklyn with a big heart, a bold laugh, and a HUGE drive and ambition to succeed, many days I still see myself as that beautiful, brown girl growing up in Baltimore who just loved books. I see her picking up her first books by Maya Angelou, Bebe Moore Campbell, E. Lynn Harris, and Toni Morrison. I see her falling in love with the written word. I can still feel her heart dancing through the aisles of her first job at the Randallstown Public Library. I can still feel the energy of every paper she wrote as an English major at Morgan. I can still feel that spark of inspiration that she felt upon seeing Susan Taylor during her junior year at Morgan talking about Essence magazine and building an editorial empire in New York. I can still remember the second her beautiful mind said, “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but one day I’m going to build my dreams in New York.”

Sometimes that little brown Baltimore girl still pokes me in the middle of important meetings with clients, shakes me as I’m writing and editing new chapters in books, and even wakes me up in the middle of the night to say, “Is this really my life?” On BIG days like today, she is literally going just a wee bit insane. But I calm her down and remind her that we didn’t get here through luck or happenstance, every single moment of this journey has been fueled by faith in God, hard work, amazing friends and family, and the ability and the courage to JUMP.