A glass half full

5/19/11 10:28 PM: it's finally over. i fly home tomorrow and i'm more sad to leave than excited to go home. is that bad?

This is how I started a conversation. Getting on the plane back to LA meant leaving all of Asia behind—no more backpacking, no more shake ladies or noodle guys, no more street food, no more of the last seven months. My adventure was done. El fin. Finito. NO MORE…

…or so I thought.

5/19/11 10:30 PM: …try to look at this next step as really, truly, another adventure.

This is how he ended the conversation.

Home, an adventure?

Light bulb.

In the purest sense of the word, adventure elicits excitement and fun—going to Thailand, bus-sickness three times in one hour, solo explorations, etc.—enticing the inner child in even the Scroogiest, Grinchiest of folks. But how does home fit under the same category as living in Thailand, snorkeling with sharks in Malaysia, or caving in the Philippines?

MY answer: Home is the only place where a dichotomy of me comes out of the woodwork.

budget-minimalist-walk-everywhere Kristin

vs.

label-whore-drive-four-blocks Kristin

I’ll explain:

If change is inevitable, especially when traveling, then half the fun in traveling IS coming back to experience that difference. I know I’ve changed and I’m curious to see where I’ll balance myself out. The brighter side of leaving. It was at this point in the conversation that I felt the transition from homeward reluctance to homeward enthusiasm. Going home became so exciting that I couldn’t help but smile. For the first time, I was compelled to leave the nomadic-backpacker lifestyle behind to move into the back unit of my parents’ house (I can't believe I just said that).

Long story short: getting on my flight didn’t signify the beginning to the end of my adventure but rather catalyzed its relocation, a realization that did wonders for my attitude.

Random Rant: Life, an anthology of everyday adventures and misadventures.

This conversation, in all is brevity, opened a new door to tackling each day that passes, a new lease on life so to say. My adventure isn’t just in finding personal change but living. Each day we’re confronted with life—fantastic things, little things, okay things, bad things, big things, blown out of proportion things, things. Life is as good as we make it out to be; I choose to revel in the fantastic, better the okay, and take on the rest.

LIFE AS AN ADVENTURE, a glass half full approach to living.