If u’re interested in the door to the heavens opening, start with the door to ur own secret self.” -E. Lesser
I searched and searched for a picture to put here but at this moment, reaching as I am for the door handle, I have no idea what is on the other side. I bet I come back to this post in a month or so. Adventures are terrifying, aren’t they? Good job there are only brave little bunnies here. Here is a pretty spanking picture because we like those. 
Terrifying, yes, but it can also be fulfilling.
What is more mortifying than to feel you’ve missed the Plum for want of courage to shake the Tree? ~Logan Pearsall Smith
Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first. ~Frederick B. Wilcox
No man or woman, worth their salt, who possessed a passionate yet illuminated heart, ever walked into the dark without fear. That is a Newt-ism of sorts. All of my greatest adventures which I hope to retell from a very advanced age, began with I was so d*mn scared.
Doors are portals and dividers. They mark the beginning of your smallest journey and your longest.
They symbolize the hopes and fears we have.
You can’t just dwell on the doorstep, you’ve got to move one way or the other.
Another thought: look down at your ruby slippers when the adventure gets scary. Never remove those slippers, don’t lose your spark and dream.
Poppy, good morning.
)
and warm 
It was Bilbo who said, ‘the road goes on for ever’.
When you step out of your door , whether real or metaphorical, you are starting on yet another of life’s adventures.
We may think that we know where we are going, but we are often surprised.
You are wise to be aware of fear, it keeps you alert and on your toes, but it doesn’t paralyze you.
Paul.
None of us know what is on the other side of the door, that is part of the adventure. Isn’t that what life is all about? We move forward we can look back but never move back.
I love that quote, and all the responses. I had to think about this for awhile. What I have found is that there is fear in moving forward, but there is also fear in staying put, when you know it’s the wrong thing to do.
In moving forward, we can act on the fear, and it will dissipate. When we stay stuck, the fear just keeps rising, and there is no where to go with it. It settles inside of us instead, and gets very very stuck there. That is never a pretty outcome.
You’re doing the right thing with your fear. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Step by step.
xo
Mindy, wonderful quotations and I am shaking the tree for all I am worth. And my slippers will work just fine once I work out where home is.
Newt, I love that. I am so damn scared and this is the start of something- in just over a week my new life starts. Very damn scared.
Paul, I have kind of taken my choices away. I have to walk through the door (literal and metaphorical) and cannot be paralysed. But this is my road and I can’t help but walk it.
Kaki, it is and you are right. Forwards is the only way.
Scarlet, I have been staying put for years and it has made me so unhappy so that is no longer an option. Step by step and not alone.
xx
Count the steps you’ve already taken, Poppy – you’ve taken lots, and they’ve been big ones. You’re already much closer to your goal than you were when you started, and the momentum is with you. Just keep going, and you will get there.
I have traveled a lot. Sometimes into situations where life is surely not what we would wish for our brethren.
I learned these deep yet simple lessons. I want to say them, I just want to preface it wit this- I hate preachy people who think they know whats best for my life!
Poppy, when you leave your home and move to your cottage. Open the door at night, look into the dark cold night and know, KNOW POPPY, that perhaps one or more of your readers or reader friends are looking at the same sky you are. Dreaming, wishing and hoping.
Its real. Every hiccup with Dexter will feel 20 x times worse, every day will feel drastically different. Until it doesn’t. Life will feel new. New isn’t what its cracked up to be- at first.
We all share similarities, traits, tics(lol) but what brings us to this part of the web is a pull & desire.
Right? A common want so overwhelming that
it really forms the inside stuff. The complicated real life stuff. Some people I read- lucky as Hell to get it right, right off the bat. Some search and search -try and struggle.
As I read, in my own search which is M/F, I have learned. I really learned, as I have in my work and travels. We are all one people.
We.Are. ONE People. Every color, every gender combo, every single variance of sexuality.
Every single genre of this kink searches at the end of the day for two simple things, a voice and acceptance.
Those people, are here Poppy. Listening. Reading. Writing to you. We are here. Its real. Strangers really do, do this. I have seen it Poppy. We are here.