Every Day An Adventure

Write about your favorite adventure from your life so far.

I've had this question stuck in the back of my mind for a week now...

To be completely honest, I'm pretty much a homebody.
Don't get me wrong, I love going out and making memories but there is nothing better than coming home at the end of a long day or night and putting on your sweats and just veggin' out with the person you love or your family or dog or whoever is in your life. (I used to go to school during the day and then go to work in the evening. I would come home at like 10:30 and heat my dinner up and then eat it in bed while watching Conan and my dog would come lay on my bed and I just miss that so much.)

If I had to pick something recent though, it'd definitely be our anniversary trip to Baltimore two weeks ago. Sleeping in, cashing in all our change to get Chik-Fil-A, seeing Interstate 70 literally end and turn into a roundabout, the World's Most Incredible Art Museum, the World's Least Incredible Art Museum (if you like free stuff, skip the American Visionary Art Museum and go to the Baltimore Museum of Art instead!), complaining about rush hour traffic and bipolar Maryland weather with my best friend, discovering a new band because they were the opening act, seeing the look on his face seeing his favorite band perform for the first time...

But then I think about my childhood and running through the *tiny* patch of sunflowers in my Papa's garden with my cousin, that day in 1st grade when I wrote a story for the first time and knew my life would never be the same, or the Florida Georgia Line concert last summer, or going to D.C. for Spring Break in the 11th grade and spending the entire trip texting my prom date/best friend (NOT the same best friend I would end up falling in love with just a month later)...

Maybe this is why I found it so hard to answer the question of my "favorite" adventure.

Because I find life itself to be an adventure.
I think everyone  can find something in each day that they'll remember and could tell the story of over and over and it's not always something remarkable; sometimes it's as simple as giving yourself a break for a day or getting through your writer's block or making the world's greatest sandwich.

The remarkable stuff is awesome but it doesn't happen all the time, so learn to appreciate all the stuff in between because every day of this life is an adventure and if you spend time trying to fill it with remarkable stuff you're going to miss out on a lot.

"A thousand moments that I had just taken for granted- mostly because I had assumed that there would be a thousand more"

How do you know?

If you could meet anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? Where would you meet and what would you talk about?

There are so many influential people I would love to sit down with. They range from political figures like Bernie Sanders (no surprise there) and Abraham Lincoln, to YouTube sensations to my personal heroes/spirit animals. In order, these are:

1. Mindy Kaling
2. Lauren Conrad
3. Nicki Minaj
4. Taylor Swift
5. Selena Gomez


But at this point in my life I have really started to re-explore and reevaluate my faith and my relationship with God.

The location doesn't matter (though I would love to see the world through his eyes).

And I just have one pressing question for him:

How do I know I'm going to be okay?

I know He knows, but how am I supposed to realize when I feel like everything is crashing down around me that, "everything happens for a reason and this is my path"?

Not that my life is some gigantic mess but...
I have a hard time following through (especially when it comes to promises I make myself).

Because every day I feel like a different person.

Some days I wake up and think about how much I hate my job and my school and the place I live and I start thinking about the future and how great it will be when I'm making six figures and living in a big house with a pool and like 82 dogs and my kids will excel at everything (obviously, because they're my kids).

But then I think about where I am now. Sitting here, in my own apartment, writing this because I don't have anything more pressing to be doing. And I bought a necklace today that I know the girls at work will flip out over when I wear it this weekend.
Speaking of the girls at work, I get to wake up every day and 1) be around clothes, 2) help people look their best, and 3) hang out with my best friends all day.


So how am I supposed to know if I'm doing everything right in life?
How are any of us supposed to know if this one decision we make or this one chance we take or this one person we meet will change our lives for better or for worse?

What is my path?
What even is a path?
Is it one end destination that every event leads up to?
Or do all of the events wind up being the path all along?

How do I know that I'll be with kids who excel at everything and a six-figure income? Is that something I made up to make myself feel better, or are you telling me that, God?

How do I know I'll be okay?
How do we know we'll be okay?


How do you know?

Step 1: Give Up

Serenity.

It's the feeling you get when you're sitting on a porch or a dock on a nice night. And there's no noise except for the bugs chirping. And it's dark enough that you can't see. And it's a little chilly but it doesn't matter because you're with your best friend or the love of your life and you probably just broke down or had a life changing moment because you don't just get nights like that without giving something in return.

You don't get to be serene until you give up a piece of yourself.

Surrender to serenity.

Day 7

Never will I enjoy waking up at 5:20 in the morning.

However, I will say that on the days I have to wake up early for work I get more stuff done- both at work and once I leave.

Experts say that the hours of 6-10 a.m. are the "most productive" and it makes total sense.

The world is so quiet. The sun hasn't risen yet so we're stuck in this weird Twilight Zone-esque dawn. Nobody is speaking because they're either still asleep or- if they are awake for whatever ungodly reason- haven't had time for coffee yet, so there are no chatty Kathy's to disrupt you from whatever you are working on.

Depending on what you do for a living you might see it differently, but I love the world before 10 a.m. Everything is just so much more quiet. Plus, there's more time to get stuff done!

"You have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyoncé"

And she just released her second visual album.

If that's not enough motivation for you then I don't know what is.

Day 6

Nothing gets the creative juices flowing like a midnight breakfast. 

And 22 hours later...

A portfolio including 4 compositions, two of those compositions revised (all in Spanish) and a reflective essay about my experience in the class.

A 10-page paper from the perspective of the Ann Taylor parent company, ANN INC. on Rana Plaza (an eight-story building that housed multiple garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh in 2013 and killed over 1,000 people) and what they are doing as a company to prevent issues like this from ever occurring again.

And a whopping 15-page argumentative essay on why Mindy Kaling and her show The Mindy Project perfectly encapsulate postfeminism themes.

It's safe to say Junior year kicked my ass...

But I think I kicked it right back.

Praying I receive that Dean's List letter in the next few weeks. It will be my first time making it since I started at Shepherd, and I can't think of a better way to showcase my accomplishments as I *finally* turn 21 and start my Senior year.

Everything is going pretty great right now.

So why do I have this terrible feeling in my gut?

Maybe it's from the three carne asada tacos, rice, beans, chips and salsa, queso and guac, AND churros I ate tonight for my sister's 10th birthday.

Maybe it's the fact that my sister is now double digits and watching every move I make that much closer...

But maybe it's something more.

I just have this anxiousness like I'm forgetting something. That can't be true though because all my papers plus the books I have to return plus the form I have to turn in to financial aid are sitting on the front table with a sticky note on top. 

Maybe it's because I don't think my papers are good enough. Considering I waited until the absolute last day and then feverishly wrote over a span of 8 hours while simultaneously taking breaks for Snapchat I'd say they probably didn't reach their full potential. 

However, I am also delusionally confident in my ability to bullshit a paper that will earn me an 'A' for the semester. Here's an excerpt from my Mindy paper:

            "Part of what makes "The Mindy Project" such a great postfeminist platform is its refusal to commit to any one role. Dr. Lahiri is not just a successful gynecologist in Manhattan that eventually will start her own fertility clinic. She is not just the outrageous outfits she dresses herself in or the white boys she obsesses over. She is not just the token colored person of the office. Mindy, both as her character and in real life, represent the highest form of gender fluidity in 2016. That is to say you can rock curves and love trash TV and yet be successful in your career all while being a single parent and you can depend on your friends and family for some things and yet be self-sufficient all at the same time. Postfeminism is about being the best "you" you can be whether that means becoming a doctor or taking a year off from school to travel the world or not going to school at all because you know it isn't for you. It's about not taking crap from anyone about the choices you make and still respecting people's opinion of you and knowing when to ask for help from the people that matter to you. It's about not letting your race or sexual preference or occupation define you but embracing that those things at the same time make you who you are. All of these things combined are what I believe make Mindy- both the actress and the character she plays- a good role model for postfeminism."

Inspirational, right? (And that's just the conclusion!) So it's definitely not my writing. Maybe I just haven't taken the time to myself the last few days. No, I know I haven't. But now I am done (after one last test tomorrow morning). So for now, I will try to relax- and hopefully finish Mindy's book Why Not Me? tonight. For all of you about to experience Hell Week, for the first or last time, I leave you with this, a quote from my spirit animal herself. (Spending the last day researching every tidbit of her life and career has made me fall that much more in love with her).

"Someday you will have the power to make a difference in the world, so use it well" -Mindy Kaling

Another? ""Why the fuck not me?" should be your motto" -Mindy Kaling

Day 4

Day 4

I almost forgot what having a good day felt like.

It feels good.

Like I want to have more of them. 

If you Google search, "How to get out of a funk" you'll get a good amount of results.

If you click on the second result, you'll see a quote.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven" -John Milton

Whoa. That right there is powerful.

Your mind is a wide open space.

Over time things get in there: good memories like the first time you fell in love, bad memories like when your grandfather died, and everything in between, like good memories with people you may not know anymore. (More on that in my last post)

When life is seemingly great, our brains can have a tendency to get overloaded with good memories and they can mesh with the bad ones, triggering a warning that things can go wrong anytime.

This can happen by focusing on the past and worrying about the future so you can't enjoy the present.

But it can also "make a heaven of hell", so when things are rough or you're down in the dumps or whatever, there's always gonna be that one person, that one song on the radio, that one thing you love that's always gonna be there for you at the end of the day and no matter what happens you suddenly realize you're going to be all right.

(The article is an incredible read. Thank you, Mr. Lejuwaan.

Actually, The whole HighExistence website is incredible. KUDOS.)

If you think about it, we should all just be doing what we did as kids.

Think about how many memories we have that are based in our childhood.

And good memories too.

We didn't see the single mom working overtime to support us. We saw getting to spend more time with grandma and grandpa.

We didn't see color, we saw our friends, who probably looked different from us, but we didn't pay attention. We were too busy playing dress up.

We didn't see schoolwork as "work", we saw it as getting to go the library and write and draw and play outside to our heart's content.

What's one thing you did as a kid that you stopped making time for at some point in your life?

I used to write like I couldn't talk.

Well I couldn't really.

I was deathly shy.

Writing was a way for me to express myself.

I wrote well into my middle school years, until one day.

I had feverishly been working on a story I was in LOVE with. This was my masterpiece. My Sistine Chapel.

Stephanie Meyer-level detail with enough twists and turns to give you motion sickness, and it didn't save.

My laptop died overnight and it didn't save.

20 pages of my greatest work down the drain.

I convinced myself that nothing I wrote would ever be good enough to compare, and fell into a pretty deep depression.

I finally had to face the world around me. 

My dad driving a total of 4 hours to and from work every day. My mom at home with my two sisters (both a year-old or less at the time).

Me getting bullied at school to the point where I started committing truancy, both to help my mom out and to escape my problems at school...

To be fair, I said not to focus on the past. I didn't say we couldn't reflect on it.

Reflections make us better.

But now let's move forward. Onto a new day.

A new and better life.

But we'll start with today for now.

After all, two good days are better than one!

Day 3

Has anyone ever told you how fucking short this life is?

Seriously.

I know everyone is stuck on the concept of YOLO (You Only Live Once) as a means for making reckless decisions concerning their body and wallet and whatever else, and that's nice but...

One day we won't be here anymore. All that will be left of us are a pile of bones in the ground and a nice blurb engraved on a piece of stone.

Here lies this person who did this thing and it was great or whatever.

Cured cancer.

Started a Revolution.

Became the first person to walk on Mars.

But what about who you were before that?

What about when you went somewhere new for the first time and fell in love with everyone and everything you saw?

What about the day you got your heart broken and you thought you would never be the same again?

What about when you walked out on your job and never looked back?

None of those events- or how they made you feel- were part of your "plan" for the future but they all led you one way or another to where you wanted to be.

Maybe not even that. Maybe they led you to where you needed to be, either for yourself or for someone else.

Because this story isn't just yours. It's ours.

We are all we've got.

This life is all we've got.

"We're all just walking each other home," -Ram Dass

And whether you drop them off at the door or take your coat off and stay the night or move in and stay the rest of your life, you are a part of every story of every person you've ever met.

So stand up and proclaim your love for your Chem lab professor. Muster up the courage to shave your head in honor of cancer survivors- or those who lost the battle. Pack up and leave everything you know behind and start over.

Because rejection doesn't last, and hair grows back and, even if you don't have it figured out yet, you will.

"Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!" -Ram Dass

You are not the same person as you were yesterday, and you will be different still tomorrow. 

So live in the moment. Appreciate who you are today, and who others are today, because after all...

You Only Live Once.