August 2014 – T E S S

I’m inches away from a new adventure. It’s so, so close, and it’s taking quite a lot of effort to not just hop into a car and drive myself down to Utah just to get things going faster. But there’s a time, and a season, and a place for everything, so I’m just trying to savor all the life out of these last four days living in Idaho.

With new starts come new thoughts, and I’ve been doing a sizable amount of thinking the past few weeks – thinking about the past, and the future, and the ever-fleeting present. From the jumble of half-deep thoughts lately, a common theme has emerged – a central life-goal or mission or whatever sort of a name you want to give it. No matter what I do, my mind hasn’t been able to stop turning over and examining the concept and action of truly living – living, and breathing, and laughing, and soaking in the sweet moments, and drinking up life, and consciously acting in such a way that appreciation abounds and memories of joy remain in the wake of days. I’ve been pinning and screenshotting quotes that speak little whispers of this to me in the past month, and although I’m never been much of one to stick to a central mission for long, this one is just about breaking that trend.

There’s something about having this enormous future just sitting in front of me that gets the adventurous side of me terribly antsy and excited. I’m bursting with anticipation for everything that’s going to unfold. I am so blessed to have fresh starts and new friendships and unique experiences just around the corner. The fact that life isn’t meant to be stagnant is so beautiful to me. I love the magic and the allure of newness. There’s a certain amount of gleaming, silvery dusting that begins to coat everyday experiences when you stop and think about the fleeting everyday moments and the beauty of change. There’s got to be some sort of a reason why everything in the world changes and grows and moves. I believe a large part of that is so we can learn squeeze the nuances out of existence – there’s magic in those nuances, you know.

Capturing the magic requires some effort, of course. No person rich in diverse and adventurous life-experiences ever acquired that wealth from sitting on their couch, staring at their phone, mindlessly flicking their finger at a screen to scroll through Twitter. That’s the comfortable way to go about life, sure, but I’d much rather survive a bit of discomfort and come out with a heart full of memories of exceptional people and breathtaking mountains and bursting laughter and blood pounding through your veins at breakneck speeds. As I embark on this new chapter of my life, I’ve become more and more determined to make my mark as one with that second set of stories. Life is far too deep and spectacular to waste away your days. I think of standing in front of my Heavenly Father sometime in the future and being accountable for all of the greatness that was set before me that I did or didn’t make the most of, and I realize that I really have no excuse for laziness and those sluggish days of laying on the couch and and watching hours of Netflix.

Life is an adventure. A beautiful, glorious, majestic, yet often dirty and rocky adventure. And as terrifying as it is for me to step beyond my comfort zone, outside of the comfort zone is where adventure and growth and excitement all have a fine time hanging out. And in this unique time where one life-season is rapidly ending, and another life-season is just on the brink of starting up, I’m enjoying peeking through the doorway into that outer-comfort-zone land. Two weeks ago at a family reunion, I had one of those deep life-conversations with one of my family members, which really made me think harder about how wonderful this time of life is, where there is so much ahead, and where I have so much control over the shape I want my life to take from this point on. It made me really think hard about the list I’ve kept running through my mind all my life of “Things That Are Hopefully Going to Be Accomplished Before I Die,” and I’ve now turned that into a list of “Things That I Am Going to Make Happen Before I Die.” All of the somedays that I’ve been compiling are now under my control, which is an idea that freaks me out just a tad, but then fills me with this strange, almost competitive determination to make them happen.

I want to live. I want to wake up for sunrises, and learn from people from all walks of life, and try new things, and stretch my boundaries, and completely blow my own mind away at the wonders that I can accomplish. There’s grand potential just under the surface of everyone, and just think of how much more wonderful our world be if everyone threw away the excuses and the fears and dove headfirst into that potential. I’d say that’s what truly living is – jumping off of the edges of comfort and into that potential, that rich soil where tremendous growth happens. I’m inadvertently begun a sort of quest to defeat timidity and jump over fears in the next few months. It’s crazy to think just how limitless the possibilities really are. Creating a future is a fun business!

So here’s to living, and to pinning dates on someday events, and to having brunch with adventure. Anyone care to join me?

And to finish this up, here are some of the words I’ve stumbled upon in the past little while in regards to life and comfort zones and all that jazz: