Life is An Adventure written Bambi Makowski

This coming December, I will be checking something else off my bucket list. As I will be going on my first Cruise. A couple of Friends and My daughter and her family will be joining me for this five-day adventure on the seas. This is July and I have already started preparation for this adventure. I have taken my time off, booked my room. Paid for the adventure, started shopping and looking through websites for the best outfits, and we have started a group chat because we all want to know what the other is doing and thinking. We wanted to know should we buy the ducks to hide them around the ship, should we dress up for every dinner, does everyone have a suitcase? All these just because an adventure awaits us.

I started thinking about the other times I have prepared for an adventure, because one is waiting at all times. I thought about when I was preparing to be a mom. I had no idea what to expect, but I did know I needed to prepare. I needed to get everything in order, I needed to buy everything I thought I needed, I needed to get my hands on every book to read, what to do when this or that happened, I needed to learn how to feed, bathe, and what cry meant what. If I am prepared, I am guaranteed a great time and great results, right? having a baby is a lasting adventure. Just for your information though, nothing prepares you for this kind of adventure.

I had taken my daughters on a trip. I had it all planned out. This was after their dad had left in September of 1996. I thought I was prepared for anything. I had never done something like that before, but we needed to get out of dodge and get our minds off of the shock of my ex-husband leaving again for someone else. We were doing well on the drive except for the filling on the top of the ceiling of the car flew all over the place because we tore off the fabric that held everything into place. We stopped in Virginia where their aunt worked at the airport. We saw her and then continued on our journey. Tennessee here we come until my car started acting up and we found ourselves on the side of the road being told my engine blew up. Our trip turned into an adventure fast. we were picked up by strangers, who took us to their house and then picked up late at night by my friends to go to their house, where we ended up staying till Thanksgiving and eating a chicken instead of a turkey. I thought people would come through to help me take my car back to NY fixed. But we had to leave it there and head back home and pay for the next nine months in payments to get my car fixed. So, an adventure did await us, just not one we thought.

When my sons were turning ten, I wanted them to have an adventure that they would remember forever. I thought turning ten was a milestone in their lives and, how could I make it special? I decided like all parents to take them on a hot air balloon ride. Don't all parents go and do something extreme? I was a single mom and not a lot of money, I had to save for a while to give them an experience and adventure of a lifetime. They had no idea when we pulled up to the spot where the balloon would be launched. I didn't want to tell them I was scared to death because I didn't want anything to mess up this adventure I had planned for them. We had a great time. This Was a very exciting and surreal thing we did. years later my eldest son would take his soon to be wife on the same balloon and propose to her. Their adventure was a little more intense than ours but, still an adventure to remember for a lifetime This kind of adventure may not be for everybody but, it sure was better than the time I chose to jump out of a plane at 13,000 feet. but that's another story. 

Some adventures give you the "itch" to never stop seeking and finding them. My ex-husband and I had bought a timeshare and with the signing on the dotted line I had them give us an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii. We were going to use it for our fifth anniversary. I ended up going on by myself. First time on a plane and twelve hours with that first time experience. I stayed seven days and six nights. What a blast I had. I look back at that trip and know that was the trip that gave me freedom to seek adventures at every turn. I swam with the dolphins for the first time, went on a carriage ride with a couple I met from Australia, sailed on a boat for the first time and spent the whole time over the edge of the boat vomiting, watch the sunset and sunrise on the beach, went to a pig roast and laughed so much and smiled more than I had in years. That adventure gave me freedom and courage that I would need for the next few years after. Something sparked in me in the form of bravery. The Hawaii adventure will always be close to my heart. Someday I would love to go back and tell the Island, Thank You

Every day I wake up I think that it will be an adventure, because isn't life an adventure? There are moments at every turn waiting for you to explore the possibility of what life to offer. I want to see life through, the thought that something new is always around the corner. My Job takes me to doors every day. Those doors when opened, become an adventure, that is waiting for me and a new possibility of a connection that leads to a friendship. I don't turn down connections. An adventure awaits all of us the moment we step out of bed, even that in itself is an adventure. That first time in the morning that our feet hit the ground becomes an adventure that is waiting for us. I believe life is all about perception, how we look at it and how we face it.The adventure that awaits you doesn't always have be grand. When I tell my grandchildren we are going on an adventure, it could mean jumping into the mud puddles, finding eggs on a milkweed, walking under a bridge, going out for ice-cream, dressing up and having a tea party or knocking on their doors dressed as the Grinch or a dinosaur. I have told grandchildren to get into the car we are going on an adventure, and we pull into the parking lot of a grocery store, where they get to pick out anything they want for dinner. They think that is the best adventure.

One time when I went back to Buffalo for a visit, I asked one of my friends if they wanted to take a ride to Rock City. She is game with anything with me, so she can spend time with me. We have had so many conversations and our friendship is that of fine wine, gets better and better as the years go by. We drove up to the parking lot, neither one of us knew what to expect. So, I guess you could call it an adventure. The rocks were beautiful. The scenery was breathe taking. but the journey was hard. There were times we had to brave on and not knowing if we could make it through the rocks and back up the rock hill again. There was a new horizon that awaits us at every turn. We cheered on for each other and rested our bodies together to get back up to climb again. We learned a lot about each other, and my friend learned that she could do it with encouragement and not giving up, she had no choice but, to continue because we had to keep climbing till, we got to the top. We had no idea what adventure awaits us. but, at the end we were happy we didn't give up on it.

 The meaning of Adventure- An unusual and exciting, typically hazardous experience or activity

Engage in hazardous and exciting activity especially the exploration of the unknown

An exciting or very unusual experience, a bold usually

risky undertaking, hazardous action of uncertain outcome

To Risk, to dare, referring always to an undertaking attended with some peril

I would look at the meaning of adventure and conclude that it is the moment we step down from our bed each morning. We have no idea what will happen in that day. We have no reflection mirror that gives us the future for our lives. But we brave the day as a new beginning, as a new adventure, as a new promise, as a new day with a hope we will go back to bed that evening surviving the day that was started by just our eyes opening. In every corner of our lives an adventure awaits. We don't have to will it, it wills itself. We don't have to tell the sun to rise and the sun to set. But we must live in between those specular things each day. They say there is a time to live and a time to die and what happens in between is up to you. How we choose to live this life and what we leave behind is a choice you can make. I choose to have the conversation be at my Memorial, " Bambi chose to live life like an adventure, she was always looking for one around the corner of every turn she took" How will you choose? If you are like me, An Adventure Awaits