Dear Community -

My name is Heather Cobb - I am 32 years old, born and raised in Texas, and currently a thankful resident of the great state of California. I was diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes at the age of 19, and made a promise to myself that I would not let my diagnosis hold me back. So I joined the Peace Corps and went down to the beautiful country of El Salvador for my two years of service. Living and working in a rural pueblo those two years changed my life and ignited in me a passion for global health and travel. I have had the privilege of traveling to 26 countries in a mix of work and pleasure, and look forward to sharing upcoming travel adventures with the Steemit community. As a solo female traveler, I am always looking for insights from fellow travelers who have come before me, so I would like to do my part and share my knowledge and travel experiences as well :)

You will also find that all my current posts are poetry. To be honest this past year was a rough one for me - I changed a lot of things about myself in order to keep a long term relationship going - career path, friendships and hobbies falling away, travel plans put on hold....well I finally got wise and broke off that 7 year relationship to my ex-fiance. About three months after ending the relationship I was laid off from my job. I've taken all this chaos as a sign that it is time to start doing things differently. To stop forcing myself into desk jobs that I hate just to pay the bills (and the 6 figure student loan tab-woof!), and to instead explore my passions of writing and travel, and to have enough faith in myself to know that things will work out as they should. So, all that is to say, my posts may be a little all over the place - poetry that has helped me to process all the major life changes I have gone through this past year, travel excerpts and tips (including my experience buying diabetic testing supplies and insulin in the countries I travel to....the United States is the worst for that - but I doubt anyone is surprised by that bit of news!), and some nice photos along the way (the two photos I have included here are from a recent surf trip down to Costa Rica...travel write ups coming soon!)

Which leads me to asking this wonderful community a big favor - I am not the most tech savvy and I am operating off an old school MacBook Pro from 2009 - could be because my computer is so old that it will not allow me to download more recent operating systems?? Anywho - I cannot figure out how to upvote posts or leave replies for other Steemers and their posts. Any tips and tricks of the trade you fine people would like to share in the comments section would be much appreciated.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope you find my upcoming posts to be at least entertaining, and hopefully even a little helpful.

Much love!
Heather