Adventure, You Say?

While the digital clock on my cell phone silently rolled over to midnight, the ricochet of a million Black Cats echoing throughout the neighborhood announced the birth of the new year! If you think about it, 2010 seems like some number out of a sci-fi movie title,
yet here we are welcoming in the first of 365 fantastic days. Many of us will be observing some kind of tradition whether it's making new year's resolutions or eating a big helping of cabbage and black-eyed peas.


For me, this is a particularly exciting and eventful year. I'll be celebrating my 45th birthday this month on the 11th, so what better way to honor midlife than to spend the entire year experiencing as many new "adventures" as possible! I'll be writing about those adventures each week in my blog and taking suggestions from readers along the way. I hope you'll follow me.




I guess I need to take this opportunity to define the parameters of "Adventure." When I posted a request for suggestions on Facebook last week, I received all sorts of daring and extreme ideas from learning to wakeboard to skydiving to being in the water with gators.


Let me explain a few things. You will never catch me jumping out of or off of anything higher than a few feet from the ground. No thank you, ma'am. I am certain I would die of a heart attack. A friend of mine recently shared his own "skydiving" experience, which just reinforced my desire to keep my feet on the ground. I have already tried water skiing on a couple of different boards; my conclusion: it is mother nature's answer to internal cleansing. I never knew water could find its way into so many different places! As for the gators, I've done that having lived and taught in the Alligator Capital of Texas. 


So, you might be asking yourself...what kind of adventures is she hoping to have? I'm looking to find the adventure in everyday life. It might be something as simple as trying a different flavor of ice cream - other than the delicious, life-long favorite Dutch chocolate I've been buying - to riding in a hot-air balloon over the city of Houston ( a hint to my first adventure!) It could be taking a cooking class at Central Market to test driving that sassy 2010 Camaro I will probably never buy because I'm too practical. I might learn a new language other than English and French or stand in a water fountain in some European country. What matters is that I diverge from the road I always travel.


My year of adventure isn't a bucket list. I've been making a bucket list for some time now, and at the end of the year when I looked back at it, I did so with mixed reviews. I realized that one...I hadn't accomplished everything on the list, and two...I hadn't kicked the bucket. So, depending on how you view that, the outcome was confusing at best.


Don't get me wrong. I still have a list of goals and dreams. That is, after all, what keeps me going. But I've decided to claim my beloved Dr. Seuss' philosophy from one of his book titles, "Oh, the Places You'll Go," as a more desirable motto. So here's to you 2010! I welcome you and midlife with open arms, a smile on my face, and the wind at my feet.

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own.  And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets.  Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any
you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.

It's opener there
in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don't worry.  Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

    - Dr. Seuss