Part Two: Unexpected Adventures

The second part of my journey is a journey all in itself.  When life doesn’t go exactly the way you thought it was going to, you have two choices.  You can dwell on all the things that you don’t have or you can take advantage of all the things you can have.

I know I've said this before but I always thought that at 28 years old, I would be at a different stage in my life.  I figured I would have more responsibilities or other people to consider when I decided to do things but that was just a thought.  The reality is that I don’t have anything keeping me from doing the things I want to do except for me. 

When you’re little, people tell you that you’re supposed to grow up, get a job, fall in love, get married, have kids, and basically live happily ever after.   Well they don’t exactly put an age on that fairy tale so when you grow up, you realize that just because you want happily ever after doesn’t mean that you can predict when you are going to get it.  As nice as it is to think we can have a well thought out and carefully detailed life plan, we really can’t.  You can try to plot out everything but eventually life will intervene.  Maybe you will fall in love when you weren’t looking for it or end up with someone who’s not ideally who you thought you would be with.  You could wind up changing your career plan, having kids sooner than you expected or living somewhere you never could have imagined living.  All of the twists and turns in life are your unexpected adventures. 

Now since my life plan didn’t go exactly how I thought it would, I’m in an unexpected place and I’ve decided to take advantage of that.  I still want the white picket fence, marriage and kids someday but I’m not just going to sit around on my couch watching 90210 reruns while I wait for that pretty picture. 

So I came up with “The List”.  We all have our list of things we want to do before we die and if you don’t, I suggest you think about it.  The list that I’ve created is a modified version of my life bucket list.  Since I have a time line of a year on this project, I had to fill the list with things that I want to do but also things that I can do within my time frame.  For example, on my overall bucket list, I want to go to every Major League Baseball ballpark.  Now I know that I can’t accomplish that in one year but I can check a few off my list, which would contribute to my ultimate goal.  I’ve been building The List over the past few weeks and I expect it to grow as time goes on.  I have posted what I have so far in a side bar to the left.  I’ve completed a few things already but I am committed to finishing the rest by my end date of 11/11/11. 

I want to really experience life and the ability to do so this freely could change at any time, which is why I need to take advantage of where I’m at now.  I’ve thrown out the pieces of my broken life plan and decided to start coloring outside the lines.  I have ideas and things I want to do but where I’m headed is still unknown.   We will learn more on the roads that we take to get to where we are going then from our final destination.   Maybe I don’t have the life I thought I wanted but I do have the opportunity to do a lot of things that I never would have been able to if my original plan had worked out.  So here’s to unexpected adventures and the excitement they will bring to my life J

“If you worry about what might be and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is” – Unknown