Down and Dirty with Independence

I do quite a bit of writing and for one of my other columns for the whole month of July, I'm celebrating women in business and their own personal stories of professional independence. Women who go into business for themselves especially experience a sense of freedom and self-confidence that the rest of us only daydream about, though some of us lately are finding ourselves entrepreneurs by accident due to job cuts and the economy, but that's a whole other blog topic to come! 

How about personally though? We may have several independence days throughout a lifetime. It's not leaving home as a young woman or separating oneself from an unsatisfying relationship. I blogged about the concept previously - one year ago today, in fact -my own personal examples of several spurts of independent muscle stretching. I shared the exhuberance, feelings of accomplishment and often sheer terror I experienced  while conquering my unique personal milestones.

Every one of us needs these opportunities to try new things or go places we thought we weren't "allowed" to explore or dare ourselves to do things we didn't expect we'd be willing to try.

So what about you? When in your lifetime did you celebrate your own "independence" day whatever the cause for celebration and how did that make you feel?