This summer is going to be an adventure.
I stand at the beginning of a life I have not partaken of for years.
The on going theme of my warm weather season will be to try it all.
I will not fear. I will embrace new activities and attempt the ones
that interest me. I will seek to do things I never would have tried
a few years ago.
The first thing I will do is to climb the
mountain in front of my house. Why? Because it is there!
But also because I have looked at her for two years now. She fills
the view in my picture window so majestically. I owe it to her to
be intimate with the vista I gaze at daily. It will take me all day,
but I will reach the top. I will know what she observes every day.
Then when I look at her, I will know what she knows. Having a mountain’s
knowledge seems exciting to me.
Next I will see the Pacific Ocean for the
first time. I will walk on a black lava beach, a green coral beach,
and a snow-white sandy beach. I will bathe in the turquoise blue
ocean waters. I will wear flowered lei around my neck. I will
go to a real luau. I will learn to scuba dive so that I might know
the beauty of the underwater world. I will close my eyes and breathe
in the paradise of Hawaii.
Then, I will begin school at the University
on my 40th birthday. I have dusted off the dreams of a girl I used
to be. I will educate myself in a field of study that seemed too
impractical 20 years ago, but today makes perfect sense. At least
it makes perfect sense in my mind. I will learn a new medium to tell
stories in. I will be equal to this challenge, because I want it
so badly. I have a right to be here. I will not let anything
or anyone discourage or stop me. If they try, they will meet the
warrior I have become.
I will run in my first organized race.
I will celebrate with my body the strides we have made in the last two
years. I will feel the thrill of participation. I will feel
the pleasure of my body performing a task she craves. I will feel
the satisfaction of knowing I can do this. I will feel joy.
These are a few of the things I have scheduled,
but I am wise to the fact that “stuff happens.” But you know what,
that’s okay with me too. You take the good with the bad. You
learn and grow with them both. So the list of unexpected things will
just be additional spice.
I have much on my plate this summer.
I will sample it all. I encouraged it to come to me, because I have
changed my view of life. I will no longer stand by and watch.
I will participate in whatever this human existence has to offer.
There was a time I suppressed my passions. They were something that
needed to be controlled. But as I stand here looking toward the second
half of my life, I see how wrong that view was. I will embrace life
and take whatever experience she has to offer me. Life is for living.
Only a survivor can truly understand that.