8.0584° S, 114.2433° E

April 19, 2019

My alarm went off at midnight before I ever fell asleep. I’m in the middle of nowhere getting into the back of a rickety Jeep in the dead of night on the other side of the world.

Then we climbed an active volcano with headlamps and gas masks. The summit was illuminated only by eerie blue flames, sulfurous gases that light on fire when they collide with oxygen. It was here that I was engulfed in a cloud of toxic gas. Coughing, unable to see, I thanked my lucky stars I was wearing the mask.

We ascended higher, climbing above the deadly acidic crater lake, and waited in the freezing cold for the sun to rise. And once it did, it turned out to be one of the most beautiful mornings of my life.

It was in that moment I realized I was living a life of wild adventure that my younger self only dreamed of.