Adventure Calls

There comes a moment in your life
Like a window, and you see
Your future there before you
And how perfect life can be
But adventure calls, with unheard voices
Pulling you away
Be careful or you may regret
The choice you make someday

I know this is going to sound silly, but these are some of the lyrics from one of my all-time favorite songs, and it comes from a Muppet movie. As ridiculous as that may be, I cannot deny that I love the words and what they implicate.

There have been countless times that I have looked out the window of my life to gaze at what the future might hold. I think the first time I ever experienced this was when I was four years old. Yes, I distinctly remember the moment I first started to plan my future, and I do believe that I was around four or five.

I lay on my back in my parents' water bed looking out at a very blue sky and thought through what I wanted out of my life. College? yes... a job? most likely... residence? maybe I'll find a house just down the street from my parents... it worked for mom, maybe I'll do the same.

From that moment, I strove to make those dreams a reality... determined my major by eighth grade, started pursuing college choices by ninth, acceptance letter at the beginning of my senior year.

Life looked perfect. All was on track with making my plans my reality.

And then I heard the call.

Having moved away from the comfortable and well-known, to the new and seemingly exciting life I was living on my own, I heard a voice within calling me to continue the adventure. The adventure has pulled me away from that I once knew, to something else.

The song portrays answering this call to adventure as something that tears one away from love. I however, have found that in my own life this is not the case. This call to adventure, to living outside of that which is comfortable and known, has caused me to grow in ways I never could have imagined as a four year old day dreaming about the future. By growing in the development of myself, I have a greater love and appreciation for those who have come alongside me throughout my life.

Will I someday regret these choices? Of moving away from old friends and family? It is possible. What I find now however, is not regret, but a sense of confidence found in knowing that when adventure called, I answered, not by shirking away, but by accepting the challenge and continuing to try my best in what life has presented before me.