There is this great appeal to adventure and travel. The thrill of new places, different cities everyday. The rush of adrenaline as you roll the window down and breathe deep the fresh air blowing in across the bay. Your eyes scan and jump to take it all in - the height of unknown buildings, the flashes of faces, the random reflection of your own face in a shop window. So strange to see you in this place. A reflection of your well-known features taking residence upon window after window. Your glance to see self in this new place as fleeting as your time spent there.
It is swift - travel. The one constant is the unknown road ahead. Yet, that is the draw. The lure that glistens just ahead, that pulls you deeper in. You may plan the steps you take, but inevitably there is a change. You move towards it though, with fervor, accepting challenge. A new opportunity with each day to stretch your view of the world, this life you live, and your role in it.
Road blocks blink bright with exciting possibility. Even the most stressful situation is entered in to with resolve - because it's in the name of "Adventure" that you push on. For when you arrive home again, you will carry with you stories. Titles written in the tear of a shirt, the lost pillow, the journals filled.
This is adventure - that you may accept what comes on the road ahead as part of the story.
Here is where I stand with a question, a quiet revelation of sorts. You see apart from a week long road trip across the Pacific Northwest and a few days housesitting - for the last 365 days I have lived in the same house. Walls plastered with maps, outward pictures of my wandering mind. Tall windows that let in the most baptizing white light after a long rain. Messy corners that are evidence of long weeks and lack of desire to clean. As I sit here in this space, this room I've lived in for the last year I'm challenged and questioning.
I did not expect all that came along the road of this last year. While setting remained the same, aside from a few room re-arrangements, detours and unexpected road signs mark the journey. New faces have come in and out, jobs have changed more than I care to count, my role in many ventures has taken different form.
Then the sudden jerk of the steering wheel and my heart flutters and someone new comes in - a boy I didn't anticipate. It's so much easier to travel alone you know. You can hide in the four walls of the same room you've lived in for the last year and not be seen. But now, he's here and his arms are open wide, yet I'm feeling broken. Days before he asks me to walk with him a while - my family changes. My heart lurches at the crash of circumstance. Suddenly the reality of years gone by comes back and collides with ideals held. I feel like I crumple under the pressure, the change of course. A snow storm blows in and the road is icy and unsure, my sight inhibited by gracefully falling flakes of perfect white.
All I do is scream - "I didn't ask for all of this." I was content with how things were, moving steadily along. Yet here as I look back I am reminded of adventure - my cry for which was loud and long the months leading up to my move back to this place. Adventure is full of detours, unexpected turns, road blocks...but I didn't ask for this. That's all I could think.
Does anyone? Do you leave your home and all you know, cross your fingers and pray for a ten hour layover? Do you drive miles and miles to hike only to find out the park is closed for several days? No, of course not. You don't seek out change, it just happens. Change is Adventure's closest friend - the one that shows up at the party late, but with a great story and extra ice.
I didn't ask for this. I don't think she did either. She didn't ask for the change to bring loss. He didn't ask for change to bring stress and anxiety. But here we are - with the results of change ahead of us, cones guiding the way of the detour.
This is Adventure. Life lived full, entered in to deeply. While I ache to think of some of the roads turned down, I rejoice for where they have led. While I have not traveled miles away, to see my face reflect off the surface of some distant lake - I can look in the mirror in the small bathroom at home and see a girl that has journeyed and is changed.
And this journey is far from complete. Sitting now I can see evidence of road maps that will lead to new chapters never before entered in to, with that boy that I was once scared to share my heart with. While wedding invitation designs lay scattered on my bed, the same light floods in the tall windows. Rushing over with it's rays of baptism, renewing my weary soul. I still have just as many questions as before, my mind will run away with lies on occasion when change enters in, but I am learning to accept the choice of Adventure. To accept what comes on the road ahead as part of the story. Leaning in to each turn and holding tightly to the hand of the Guide.
