Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Tiny Steps In A Great Big World


I've been thinking about aging a lot lately. Maybe it's the weather or maybe it's what I see when I look in the mirror or maybe it's how I feel when I get up in the morning or maybe it's how I can't remember what the hell I did yesterday. But mostly, I think it's how I seem to have lost my sense of adventure. Perhaps I've only misplaced it, but for the life of me, I can't find it.
I've always understood that age is just a number. This fact has been illustrated to me by knowing people who are old at thirty and others who are still young and eager for whatever adventures life has to offer at eighty. My own mother just got back from Egypt and she had a great time. And yes, she's eighty years old.
Me? I'm about to go all the way to Chattanooga, Tennessee for four days and I'm stressed as hell, worrying about what to pack and how much my diet will go to shit in four days, eating in restaurants.
Who's the old person here?
I know it. I claim it. I hate it.
Is it my DNA that makes me this way? Is it a natural born tendency to want to stay close at home where my own bed is, my own kitchen? What in the world am I afraid of?
In theory, I want to travel the globe. I want to experience what this world has to offer before I die. I want to eat foods that I've never eaten, hear languages I've never heard, see trees that I can't imagine as well as paintings and pyramids, rivers and the sun-baked white buildings of Greece against a sea and sky so blue I can't imagine it.
But I'll never do any of these things if I can't get off my own porch and decide what goes in a suitcase.
I'm thinking about this a lot and I'm trying to figure it out. I'm hoping that our little trip to Chattanooga will give me a boost. It's my husband's and my 23rd anniversary and I want to be able to go everywhere with him for all the rest of the years we have together. To be an adventuresome and daring woman who says YES to life and means it with all her heart and all her soul.
My husband deserves that but even more importantly, I do too.
I'm going to go pack now and I'm going to try not worry so much about what all I need to take.
Because really, all I really need is what I have- my man, our love, and the ability to jump right in to the big clear waters of life, dive down deep and come up smiling. I know I have that somewhere. I just have to find it.

9 comments:

  1. Maybe it's not so much that your sense of adventure is missing as it is that your true loves have fallen into place. The bounty of your garden, the culmination of your cooking skills, your writing projects, your empty nest... it does not sound like your juices are drying up (gettin old) but that you derive your soul food closer to home than you might have imagined you would at this point in your life. If that is the case, no need to apologize to yourself or your well traveled friends that you're not the globe trekking gal that you envisioned you would evolve into one day. You're reaping the benefits of a life that you've built right here in one of the finest corners of this continent that one can live in. Yes, aspire to do some cool traveling with your man but I would say don't regret a moment of the time that you've spent at your homestead smelling the roses.

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  2. No doubt. When I was young I traveled everywhere thinking it would make me wiser or more worldy, but I got repeatedly humbled by people who had never left their town, village, or country. That's when I realized you can cut the whole skin off the apple, but that ain't what apples taste like. You got to bite into one spot and eat eventually.

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  3. Wow. You guys make me feel so humbled. I swear, I want to cry, reading what you both have written.
    So it's not so bad to want to sit here on my lizardy porch and watch the birds?
    I am just afraid of being afraid. Of becoming a prisoner of this beautiful life that I have.
    I guess, as with everything, there has to be balance. And that is what I am seeking. And aren't we all?
    Thank you, Aucillasinks and Juancho, for giving me such terrifically insightful and compassionate comments.

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  4. Gosh - this post sounded so much like me! Haha! I've always wanted to travel the world - one of my goals is to save up money so I can do it before I get caught up with a career, kids, etc. Who knows when that'll happen - maybe not for a long time - or maybe not until AFTER all that other stuff. But I am attached to my comforts of home - my nice warm bed & pillow, my own space & safety... Adventure and change is fun - but it is scary. But ya know - the times I have gone out without my comforts (like a week long camping trip last year in the heat of summer - with no showers or bathrooms!), I somehow enjoyed it and it didn't seem to matter so much that I was without. You just adjust somehow. And you always know home is there waiting for you (:

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  5. Hmmmmmmmm.

    I've thought these same thoughts. You've expressed them well.

    Get your sense of adventure back, girl. Maybe my sister and I will have to pick you up one day (on a WEEKDAY) and we'll drive up and down Tennessee and Monroe streets wearing pink rollers in our hair and white face cream on our faces, with the radio blasting "Baby Got Back" or something equally trashilicious.

    If that don't get your sense of adventure back in gear, then I don't know if we'll be able to help you, honeychild.

    Oh, and we have been known to do these types of things. Stone cold sober.

    BFF,
    Miss T

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  6. Oh, CME, I know you're right. But listen- if you're going to rough it, do it while you're young. The thought of primitive camping in the summer just makes me want to hold on to my door and not let go.
    There's just not enough money in the world to make me want to spend sleepless nights, sweating and swatting mosquitoes. As to no bathrooms, well...
    Uh, NO.

    And Ms. T- is that a threat or an offer? And is sobriety a requirement?
    Am awaiting your answer.

    Love to you both....Ms. Moon

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  7. I'm a home bug as well, sprinkled lightly with travel fever, always ready to get back home after a few days or weeks (depending on the homeyness of the destination).

    Funny - we just celebrated our 12th anniversary on the 28th of October.

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  8. Ms. Ample- we're commenting back and forth on each other's blogs. This is funny.
    Yeah, our anniversaries are very close and, if I recall we share the SAME birthday. Very odd.

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  9. It's perfectly okay to sit on the porch and watch the world go by, but when you travel, who cares if your diet goes to shit for a few days? Just get back on track when you get home.

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