Adventure

I think, of my three life themes, this one is my favorite. Courage is the most prominent, and freedom is the one most striven for, but adventure is the most fun. And I am going to tell you why.

I don't really have a definition for adventure. Mostly because adventure can be a wide array of things. The dictionary says an adventure is, "An unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity." And I absolutely *adore* that definition. I think adventures like to disguise themselves in ordinary, everyday situations, just so that they can pop out of nowhere and surprise you when you least expect it.

I think anything can be an adventure, if you want it to be.

From road trips to five hour shifts at work, from exploring a castle hidden in the mountains to caroling. Whether you are on your own, with your partner in crime, or a group of fifty, whether you get lost or injured or arrested, adventure is anything and everything you want it to be. And I think that's why I love it oh so very much.

I also *adore* the list of synonyms that the dictionary chose for adventure. Venture. Hazard. Risk. And my all-time favorite:

Dare.

I can honestly say that I never before put the words adventure and dare in relation to one another. But the very sound of it gives me chills. The very thought of sticking your neck out on the line just for a chance to suck the marrow out of life excites me in a way I can't even put into words.

If you want to go on an adventure, you're going to need guts.

Adventures can be terrifying. But I think that's why they are so very fulfilling. Every time I watch an action movie, I come away with this inexplicable urge to do something that might claim my life, but would be the most grand scar story if I survived it. I want to go out with a bang. I want to be remembered because I didn't settle for a mundane human existance.

I want to be remembered because I didn't just survive. I lived. With flair.

Writing this, I realize that my three themes go hand-in-hand with each other. If one seeks an adventure, he must have courage to go on it, and when he does he will find his freedom. I want my life to be a series of stunning, breathtaking, more-spectacular-than-last-night's-sunrise moments. I never want to turn down an opportunity to go on an adventure.

I want every heart-pounding-out-of-my-chest car race. I want every singing-about-Papa's-great-love-on-a-rooftop moment. I want every step of the spontanious dance. I want every color that has ever graced the skies.

I want every gorgeous second of my symphony.

And I want it free and loud and bright and brilliant and intoxicating and invigorating and alive. I want it to scream like a battle cry and sing like an eight-part harmony finale. I want it to dance the dust off the floor and write until the sun comes up.

I want it to be an adventure.

In the words of one Bill McKenna, I want to slide across the finish line screaming, "Geronimo!"

And I want to live in a way that if I was given the opportunity to go back and live life all over again, I wouldn't want to change a thing.

Because it was such a grand adventure.