For The Love of Adventure

I should introduce myself. As of writing this, I am 21 years old. I’ve hiked Mount Olympus, sailed across the Mediterranean Sea, lived in a cabin in the mountains of Glacier National Park, spent a couple weeks in a hippie commune in Portugal, hitchhiked across Germany, and ridden a camel in the Erg Chebbi desert dunes in Morocco. Among other things.

Most everyone thinks I'm crazy. I can't exactly blame them, to be honest. I'm not even sure I could disagree. But I have this Want. This craving, a need to see the world. Whatever avenue makes that possible is the one I'll take. I've known this was my path since I was fourteen years old, laying awake with an itch to go, to move, the four winds whispering to me and enticing me to follow.

When I was 18, I bought a one-way ticket to Greece with next to no plan. More on this later, but so began my sailing adventure. New crew from all over the world almost every week, nights with nothing but the endless water and stars reflecting on those waves. Beauty so thick it humbled me and friends who taught me that there is a different way to live, how to slip through the cracks and keep wandering. Once I woke up that November morning and couldn't see land anymore, I spent weeks crossing seas, laughing at dolphins, and comparing cultures. I had to quite literally lose sight of the shore. For the love of adventure.

One evening, after anchoring outside a Portuguese island, we inflated the dingy with scarcely a prayer it would work. By some sort of miracle, we were soon flying across the bay with cold ocean spray stinging our faces. I remember sitting there, laughing at the poor guttering motor, and thinking that maybe this is what it feels like to be truly alive. To be so immersed in my surroundings and the moments they hold that I'm in a state of openness and truly free. And I knew I would never be content in one place again, that I have this ravenous hunger for whatever is where the horizon connects with the earth.

I want to do this forever - grow and learn, get kinder and wiser, more joyful and peaceful. This is me deciding that what makes these crazy dreams of wandering possible is me, that I might as well take a shot at this seemingly far off and large what-if, to try to grab the beating heart of the world and find what connects us all. To me, that is the most valuable way I can spend the short amount of years I've been given. With open, curious eyes, joy at the small things, and a rich desire to charge further in. To experience everything that could be waiting for me at that horizon.