Photo Courtesy of @Justinisjoy

I’ve spent a lot of time this year pondering wanderlust and adventuring. I had a rapturous taste of these things in 2014 and managed to keep that spirit alive in 2015. But it’s far from satiated. The hunger is only getting louder and more demanding. The things I want to see and do are pushing harder and harder on the inside walls of my heart and my brain, banging to get out and insisting I acknowledge them through words and plans.

Backing up to a few short weeks after my Mavericks moment last December, as I was patiently waiting to exit my Salt Lake City flight home from the Sundance Film Festival, I noticed the backpack of a hip hipster guy in front of me. Besides my vintage Coach backpack for Manhattan trekking, it was the first serious utilitarian pack that caught my eye and made me nod my head in silent agreement as validation for its handsome existence. You see backpacks haven’t really been my thing. I’ve always favored more haute endeavors like hobo bags, leather totes, and spotted calf hair pocketbooks. The only time I carried my $16 TJ Maxx backpack was to Sundance and thus far, it had served me well.

But that hipster’s bag, a Langly Alpha Pro camera bag to be exact, lodged itself in my mind. Like the purchase of the iMac symbolizing my commitment to this blog and the official launch of SixthSenseStyling in 2012, the Langly became a symbol for new goals that would help me address a growing need to stand on more mountains, watch more films, chase other giant waves, and feel the splash of breaching, migrating whales. The time had come for the fashionista to get a grown up adventuring bag reflecting who she’d become. Volunteer, activist, adventurer.

This girl

Symbols of aspiration are not always expensive, sometimes they’re even free. But when it’s a serious, quality product and it’s meant to represent a serious commitment, and it aligns you with a community of like-minded souls, attaining that thing is a big part of the ultimate goal itself.

My year was ticking along, Langly always in mind, but I never had a spare $250. That’s because I was adventuring – surfing, being a foodie, climbing Rocky Mountains, and did I say surfing? I resorted to asking for the Langly for my birthday but I asked too late. On top of that, on my birthday weekend, I had a little collision coming back from Folly Beach that meant a grand out-of-pocket to repair the surfwagon. All I can say is nothing comes easy. That is, until it did. I landed a couple of fun style jobs, and then I was rewarded for fifteen years of service in my 9-to-5 life. The latter might as well have been a check made out to Langly LLC. It was the same sort of unexpected windfall that happened when I was looking to buy my Mac.

The windfall that whispers, “NOW the time is right, now it’s meant to be.”