Adventure

I awoke the other morning realizing the photographs I have spattered around our home are those filled with past adventure, there are a handful of family photos so I don't look like a completely heartless female being.  Mostly though the photographs of past adventure are the ones I look at.  I have gotten a sense of accomplishment from them, but the other morning I realized I currently live a very adventuress life, many factors contribute to this, but it stifled me as I awoke and it worried me somewhat.

Those of my family and friends who know me well will know I have this inherent sense  of adventure, I've never settled down and this is about as settled as I've ever been.  I've constantly moved house and country and lived on fishing boats, sailing yachts, in communal housing, dormitories, with families, alone under an office in a  large field.  Waking to see my hard earned curtains hanging floral-y across my bedroom window I gasped to think my adventurous life is behind me.  I rolled over and told my husband.  He smiled quite contentedly and said "It's not as fun when you are older, the adventure can be really tough on old bones".  I stopped and looked at his earnest face and replied "I am glad I did so many adventurous things when I was young, we have 20 years to be settled and then maybe save up and take a cruise someplace that feeds and waters us when we can only hobble around."

I don't really believe that it's not as fun adventuring when you are older, nor do I think we'll be settled here for 20 years, but if we are, we are.  We have a good life and we are safe and sheltered.  For those of you yet to travel or adventure even in your local area please don't think I'm conceited.  I'm not wishing for the greener grass someplace else, or boasting about my past.  I really do enjoy that weird feeling of not being comfortable.  It's sort of like people who do extreme sports and they jump abseil skyscrapers for the adrenaline high.  I'm an adventure junky in a different way.  I read way to many adventure novels and have an truly international family that has enabled me to see life without the boundaries and context of nationality and border (to a degree).  I do still have my own personal sense of identity, which is mostly very British.

Comfortable scares me and I'm not sure why.  My husband loves comfortable and secure, he is an adventurer that bases his adventure in the reality of life on earth.  I'm an adventurer who shoots like a rocket into the sky and hopes for the best.  We are a good combination.  I would never have chosen this life myself, or made these decisions alone.  However I'm grateful that he can anticipate our bodies and our minds aging. The constant dance with adventure can mean isolation and indifference from a community that is stable and consistent.  If only my occupation justified travel, like being a air hostess or a travel journalist.  Traveling for work is accepted socially.

Our bodies and minds are aging and I feel like my body is aging faster than my mind.  I'm reasonably athletic and even I can see the signs of gravity pulling my body towards the earth.  I'm so grateful that I did ballet and dance and ran and adventured early in life.  I have no regrets.  If I could buy another 10 years of youth I would for sure, have my 20s body back and the energy to live it once more sure!  However I don't have that and so I must embrace life in the 30s.  I need to become more active and that feels like my greatest challenge.  It is too hot to hike, but swimming means I need a vehicle.  Yard work is good exercise, but the back breaking kind that never feels like an adventure.

Camping is a classic example of local adventure, I love to camp out.  I know so many people who hate camping out.  For me the challenge of living for one or two night off the land is quite a joyful adventure, there are so many ways to make it easier or harder, but it's still an adventure of sorts.  I never really did these things with my own family, so camping for some people reminds them of being a child, for me it's a whole new experience, something I do with my spouse.

I mentioned Kayaking during the day, we have a friend who kayaks at night!  Yes doesn't that sound like an adventure, the cool moonlit lake empty, the surrounding land peering in as you glide through the water.

I am inclined these days to have nearby adventures, local escapades...exploring new streets, swim holes, waterfalls and restaurants.  Many people live this way, surely I'll be able to do it too, pull myself down from the helium balloon I'm clinging to.  I do so love floating above the earth and meandering through it. I can adjust.  My body will be grateful for it. 

A childless couple we are and so we do not have the adventure of tiny feet and tiny hands, the greatest adventure is yet to come they say.  It's very fulfilling and the most wonderful experience you can have in life.  Those comments must sting the wound of those who cannot conceive.  Although I do believe that it must be true.  Why would it hurt a childless couple so much if having children was not a grand adventure.

I don't feel the sting, we may have children God willing and if we don't I shall find a different adventure, someone else's children to bestow gifts upon.  I have known many childless couples where I was the object of their attention and kindness.  In fact I was most grateful to them.  They interrupted the business of a 4 sibling household and recognized me as an individual.  I wasn't just muddled into the pack.

So adventure comes in many different shapes and sizes, local, global, life seasons.  I'm working through my feelings of adventure vs settling in...still.  It's taking some getting used to, but I should enjoy it and be thankful.