Dear Adventure
:: THE LOVE LETTER TO LIFE SERIES ::
Dear Adventure,
Thank you for always finding me, challenging me and stretching me.
Calling me to go, seek and uncover.
Thank you for pushing me to learn more about the world and most importantly more about myself.
I love when you surprise me with an idea that unsettles everything I’ve known up until then, and a plan that unravels and ignites me in equal measure.
You bring out the fear and the brave in me.
Thank you for giving me a reason to go. Your allure ensures I’m never in one spot too long.
Your wisdom shows me how to grow, to stretch, to do a backflip into a new version of myself.I love when we go on a walk with friends and it was promised to only be a two hour stroll and then with a haphazard wrong turn becomes a five hour hike.
Across boulders, rivers, a mountain. And when it feels like it’s too much, too hard, too far, you remind me that I can do it.
You remind me that the story of this, around the bonfire later, with cheese and wine in hand, will be worth it. You remind me that moving my body, stretching my muscles and being still with my mind today, are more important than a blister tomorrow.
I love when you encourage me to move to another country, to start new jobs, to meet new people.
And I never feel ready, I could have always planned more, saved more. But you remind me that ready is never the point.
No one is ever really ready to anything. We just have to do the thing.
You’re the reason I hired a camper van and drove up the coast on my own.
You knew I’d see the majestic pine trees lining the road, and I’d find the reason for being there.
That rush of calm and serenity and insignificance that fills your lungs and your heart.
The beauty of nature. Of solitude. Of unfiltered thinking.
You’re the reason I wander and wonder.
You help me lust after a better version of this life.
You help me strive for more peace, more connectedness, more self awareness.
You are going to an obscure restaurant with my partner on an impromptu date night and having to learn how to make our own broth.
You are the family camping trip where we forget the second gazebo and needed to huddle together in a rainstorm, and sprawl out on the grass in a heatwave.
You are the story of my grandmother in her 20s travelling solo, on a ship for three weeks, across the globe, to see where she came from.
I love you for gifting me friends in other countries. Lovers who didn’t share the same language. Family who miss me.
You are a reason to get up in the morning, to go for a walk in a new neighbourhood, new city, new country.
You are what stories are made of.
You are physical adventure and most preciously you are self adventure.
You are what happens in my heart and my mind when I’m figuring something out.
You are the meanderings of my subconscious.
You teach me.
When I have my first panic attack in time square in New York city, during my first day of looking for work, after my laptop crashes.
You show me how to ask for help.
How to sit with myself and ask myself why it hurts, where is the discomfort, how can I let go, lean in, heal.
You are the ever present sense of living a life that is true to me, even when it feels against the grain. Against the norm. Against the ‘easy’.
You, adventure, are my deep appreciation for going to dinners with good people, hiking towards waterfalls with my thoughts, camping with my family, flying towards friends with my hugs and travelling the world with my love.
Thank you for carrying me everywhere I go, adventure, I love you x
Sarah x