I’m doing something I’ve never done before. Writing a blog post on my phone. I have a bandaid on my finger and it’s hard to type well. It’s strange because I’m at a family party, one of those things where you have good food, but not a lot of fun, especially if you don’t know most of the people there.
The party space looks amazing. There are lights everywhere and the tables are elaborately decorated, so the whole thing is great. However, the mosquito bites are making me think this whole having a party outside thing wasn’t such a good idea.
There’s a live band, but every time a song ends it just gets super quiet and that’s not fun. This is honestly the only thing my family has done together thus far for the summertime.
The decorated gazeboThe funny thing is that I always think something amazing is going to happen at one of these events. Like, I’ll just magically start a friendship of a lifetime, or meet “the one.” Each idea, I know, is trite yet it’s what I’ve come to daydream about on the way to these family functions. And they all end the same. With me sitting down at some party surrounded by my family members, waiting for two things: food and my bed.
The thing is: the only way all these people are in a room together is because of the host. I mean, think about high school. The only reason you all are in a class together is that you all went to the same school at the same time.
I’m a fool, according to Einstein, yet I believe what I believe because of potential. I believe in the realm of possibility. There is truly a turn of events where I somehow meet one of my best friends at these things. A bump into a stranger, on a line, to go to the bathroom, or waiting for food.
Perhaps my history with literature gave me false hope. Maybe these stories are only written in books, the kind where the protagonist goes about thinking their life is so ordinary and by a twist of fate, they end up in a story all their own.
I want to believe that my life is a story. What sucks is waiting for it to happen.
I have to say, despite the boredom at this party, I genuinely had a decent time on the drive here. Long Island is a distance away from Brooklyn, and somehow, there were many laughs to be had on the way over. In the dead of night, I can only wonder how we will feel about our return.
In the vein of wishing your life to be a good story, it’s easy to wish away what you have. Partly because there are so many parts of life that actually do suck. Like how my mother thinks I read minds. Whenever she asks me to do something, she automatically adds some condition and never decides to mention it to me.
Sometimes I imagine perfect strangers to be part of my story, playing heroes, villains, etc. I know in real life the lines can easily be blurred. Which makes us question what is morally right? Is morality black and white? Or is there some grey area that we have failed to see? If you can’t tell, I love people watching, probably a little too much.
In movies and TV shows, there are those characters that seem to have amazing adventures land at their feet daily. Better yet, there are those characters for whom living is an adventure. For example, Elizabeth in The Crown is living an amazing, stressful life, but Ted in How I Met Your Mother somehow makes even going on the simplest date an adventure.
I desire both, to live with amazing adventures always around the corner, and to live as if every day is an amazing adventure!
In this world, it’s easy to get down if you are feeling like everything’s dull and nothing really is going on in your life, but we forget that we define these parts of our lives. Our lives are only “boring” if we make it so. Sometimes traveling to a new part of the city can be stressful or it can be the adventure where I get lost on the subway. See, that’s how you reframe. Heck, even going home on your commute can be an adventure if you frame it that way.
I’m just trying to remind you to find adventure wherever you are, even if adventure seems hard to find.
Maybe find a new coffee shop that you love. Try out a new commute to work. Spice up your routine by waking up earlier and going on a run.
Often we become so desensitized to how lucky we are to be alive, even when it sucks, even when we’re going through hell. It’s kind of crazy that we’re on this blue planet with billions of other humans. Who have thoughts just like we do. Who feel lonely just like we do.
And maybe some of us find comfort shouting in the void of the internet. Some of us blog.
Even at a party that has nothing to do with me (but has some amazing rice and shrimp!), there is a reason to breathe a little more deeply. The air around us is more precious when we realize that we are alive, and that is enough.
Signing off,
Gigi
Where do you find adventure in the every day? When was your last party? When’s your birthday?
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