Make Your Own Adventures
It’s October 5th 2021. I’m sitting in a cafe in downtown St. Pete with a friend. We’re drinking smoothies and both feeling a little restless. Not stuck or bored, just antsy. Like our soul needs something to shake life up. I’ve been feeling a little confused lately about changes. Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing college because I’m scared of the real world. Because I don’t want to see if I can’t make it living in a van, getting paid to travel and write and share stories. I know I’m too stubborn to settle into comfortable, but deep down I have this doubt that I won’t make it. So I’ve been questioning if college is just another way to push it off, because what if I’m actually too afraid of failure to try?
Sometime I wonder if college is still the right choice for me? I’m pretty sure I’ll be questioning this even after I graduate. Let’s be honest, I’m not really at college for the learning — I’m here for the people and the experiences. I’m here to make memories and not have to be a “real” adult for a few years. I’m here for the adventures and the friendships and the connections.
If I’ve learned one thing this past year, it’s that you need to take the opportunities you have to the do things that make you happy when they are presented to you. Sometimes you also need to make those opportunities for yourself.
After being inspired by a website that lists cheap last-minutes flights, we start to research where we could go. Florida is off the table because we want more. California is too long of a flight to be able to do anything in three days, and Hawaii is too expensive. We settle on New York City, which had tickets for a little over one hundred dollars round-trip. Within an hour, we have tickets for a month from today. About twenty minutes after the tickets are purchased, the song “Empire state of mind” plays over the radio in the cafe…we take it as a sign from the universe.
Every time I plan a trip, or even think about going somewhere, I get so excited. And I am reassured that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to feel this way forever…the excitement of the unknown, the butterflies in your stomach from doing something spontaneous, the awe that sweeps over your body, chilling your spin when you think of the moments to come. This is why I love to travel. Because it not only makes me feel alive while I’m traveling, but all the time.
We only have one life to live, so why are we waiting around for the perfect moment or the perfect place or the perfect price? Why not just live right now while we can, while we are still alive. Why not do what makes us happy now?
If you’re not careful, life can pass you by. You blink and you’re done high school, before you know it, you’re done two years of college, and in a few short years, your life will look different again. If we don’t stop to take in these moments, to make these experiences, then won’t we regret it? Won’t we look back at our lives and wish we did more? Isn’t that what our lives are for, why we’re here on this earth, to have experiences and moments where we feel alive, where we can’t stop smiling because life is so unreal you don’t know how to react to it?
I don’t know about you, but I’m going to create more moments. Take more time for myself, for my happiness, follow the sound of my heart and trust that my soul knows what’s best. So far, the universe has done a pretty good looking out for me, might as well be time I start to look out too.
Here’s to doing the scary things. May we always have the courage to do more of them.
