When I (ahem) left my job last fall, I knew I didn't want to go back into the same type of work. It was time for a change - long past time for a change.
One chilly night, I biked over to Amy's. After getting lost in Peter Cooper Village (duh), I found her building, and we had an uncharacteristically quiet dinner together. I had been just a few days unemployed, and was in a fog about what was next. Amy, on the other hand, was giddy. I've never seen someone so pleased about another person's joblessness. Her eyes were sparkling. Take a trip! she exclaims. She can hardly contain her excitement. Just go! Anywhere. Just go. If she was in my position - no kids, nothing holding her - Amy would be on the next ride out of town looking for the next adventure.
She recounted her cross country trip with our friend Sue, just after we graduated college. Amy had just invested $1000 with a friend's broker brother when Sue suggested the trip. She immediately called brother broker and got the money back before he could even buy anything with it; they lived off this for six weeks, funding fuel and Taco Bell. They drove their trip into the ground. On their return, they reached the final bridge toll without enough money left to even pay the toll - Amy wrote a check to the New York State highway authority for something like $4.
I have heard this story several times, and always listen with deep envy and marked regret at not having done anything like this myself. Some may be familiar in fact with my unrealized plan to make a cross-country venture this past summer - a vain attempt to recapture something I missed, I guess.
But back to last fall, Amy couldn't stop reveling on my behalf at this time in my life - you may never get the chance again, she emphasized. Over and over: "Just go!" And thus inspired Africa.
I remember getting on the plane at JFK with a deep-seated nausea. What I am doing? I was uncertain and nervous and sick to my stomach. Fast forward, I can't imagine not having gone. The worry seems foreign. I can't wait for the next adventure.
Amy was here tonight, and we revisited that conversation. I said to her, "Africa was all you, you know," to which she raised her hand in a high-five and proudly owned it. Damn right it was.
Amy's love for adventure and disinterest in the practical aspects that might hold her back inspired me to take off for a few months, have a life-changing adventure, and look forward to the next. We live once, so why not really live? Just go, her words in my head remind me. Just go.
No comments:
Post a Comment