Adventure stirs my soul, it inspires me, it makes me feel excited to be alive. Adventure also consumes me, it exhausts me. But then it ends and I go back to my normal day to day. My life is different after I’ve had the adventure though. It’s brighter, I buzz for weeks, I’m happier, I think clearer, I better understand what I want in life.
I don’t make much time for adventure these days. That’s understandable I guess as I have a young family and my priority is to be a good father and provider. But I’m rethinking that. Because I need at least a little adventure in my life to be my best self, and being my best self allows me to be the best father and provider I can be.
We just got back from a trip to Spain, driving through Andalucia, walking the streets of Sevilla, Granada and Madrid, seeing Flamenco shows, touring exquisite old buildings, eating endless tapas. It was beautiful and amazing. My god I’m so inspired just thinking about it.
But it was also exhausting and challenging. At times we were well outside our comfort zone. I had a few panic inducing moments as I did my best to get from place to place, driving through impossibly narrow one way streets, making arrangements in a language that’s not my own. That’s part of it of course. The discomfort is part of the price you pay to go on an adventure. Jet lag is tough. Travel can be expensive, although it doesn't have to be. The point is that adventure isn’t easy, it stretches you, it pushes your limits, and when it’s all over that’s one of the most fulfilling things about it.
My head is in such a better place today than it was when I left. I was really stressed before we hopped on the plane. Work is so hard and all consuming at times, and it had been for months before we left. I was so tense and uneasy that the slightest thing could push me over the edge. But I’m refreshed now. That’s a wonderful feeling.
On the surface it might seem strange to think that a huge adventure would be so refreshing. But if you go a little deeper it’s immediately clear why. An adventure sucks you in so hard that you don’t think about what you left behind, or if you do it’s only in passing. On an adventure you need to commit to the moment because there’s so much to do and see, so much to experience, and you’ll never have this opportunity again so you go for it. You go all in.
This is totally different than a “relaxing” vacation, say a beach vacation, at least for me. On vacations like that there’s so much time and space that my mind is fully open to all the stress and unproductive thinking that owned me when I was at home. I also stopped drinking several years ago, which is a factor. Drinking hard on the beach can take your mind off things I guess. Not in a way that’s particularly helpful for me, but at least it can be really fun, which is nice. But that’s behind me now, and sitting on the beach just creates a massive opportunity for my mind to keep racing, to keep running through the things that I don’t want to think about when I’m away from home.
Not that a beach vacation is bad, not at all. It’s awesome to be warm and to play with the kids in the water. I like to build sand castles too. But I don’t have enough calm in my life right now to be able to fully open myself to that kind of thing for too long. What I want instead is to escape the stress, to not think about things, and that’s one of the reasons why I love adventurous trips. They keep my mind on the adventure and off of everything else.
It’s more than that though. Adventure isn’t solely a distraction from the daily grind. It’s not even mostly that. Not thinking about my life at home is kind of a bonus, the cherry on top. The true beauty of adventure is experiencing new things, learning, growing.
We all did our best to speak Spanish in Spain. That was amazing and not something we ever really do. I actually speak pretty good Spanish and I understand it extremely well. That’s what happens when you spend the first few years of your life living in a house with your Cuban grandparents. They spoke Spanish all the time when I was young. Not to me all that much, but sometimes. And they spoke it to each other, so I learned to understand what they were saying, not necessarily all of it, but the gist. I can also easily understand the basics, even when the words are coming at me a mile a minute which tends to happen with native Spanish speakers.
We took a red-eye flight and when we landed in Madrid we immediately hopped in a rental car and started driving to Sevilla. Just a few minutes into the drive we hit our first toll booth. I rolled down the window and as I handed the toll to the woman in the booth I said “necesitamos cafe y gasolina” and gave her a warm smile. That means “we need coffee and gas.” She smiled right back at me, clearly appreciating my attempt to communicate and to lead with her native tongue. She responded and made it clear that what we needed was just a couple miles up on the right. That moment was awesome, my confidence was fully back with Spanish, and we were off! Even though it was a simple exchange, it was adventurous in its own way, and it opened me up to go deeper into the whole experience.
Adventures can be big and filled with big moments, and it’s a pretty big deal to hop on a plane and take your family to a foreign country, just as it was big and awesome when Des and I saw Real Madrid play at el estadio Santiago Bernabeu, their home stadium, on Easter Sunday, but being big is not a requirement of an adventure. Adventures can be small too, like a Sunday drive through farm fields 20 minutes from your house, and even big adventures are made up of so many little moments, little experiences, like the toll booth exchange, that all add up, that all change you in small ways and collectively in large ways. I love that about adventures. There’re so many layers, so many sizes, so many different kinds.
I’m happy right now. I’m much happier than I was when I left. I see things much more clearly too. Now that I’ve had some distance I can see how unhealthy some of my daily routines had become. In many ways I’d been punishing myself more than necessary in the name of responsibility. But I need to take care of myself too, that’s so clear to me now. And this adventure was me taking care of myself, attending to my spirit, giving my soul an experience it needed to feel fulfilled, to glow.
Not to get too sentimental here, but I cried a lot on the trip. The adventure made me see how beautiful life can be, how precious each moment is, and made me realize once again what we’re capable of if and when we go for it. Our Spanish adventure brought us so close together as a family and I cried tears of joy. When we saw a flamenco show in Granada I wept as I took in the insane heartfelt beauty of the singing and dancing and guitar playing. As the sun set on our final night in Madrid I cried uncontrollably from a place deep deep inside. I honestly don’t understand the feelings that swept through me at that moment, but the tears felt cleansing and good, I know that for sure. It was a beautiful cry. I wasn't crying because we were heading home the next day, in fact I was ready to go home, we all were, we had given the adventure all that we had. I may have been crying tears of joy, but it wasn’t a joyous moment. It was a content moment though, an appreciative moment. It was filled with love for my family, love for life. I honestly think God was with me at that moment, God was there for me. I felt it right then and there even though I didn't understand it. I’m not a religious man although in my own way I consider myself to be very “spiritual” if you know what I mean. Yeah, I think God was with me then, and I think she still is right now. I can feel it. Incredible.
When was the last time I thought God was with me? I can’t even remember. Maybe this is a sign of things to come.
I’m so moved by this trip to Spain. But it wasn't so much Spain as it was the adventure. We could’ve gone any number of places I think. And now we’re already starting to talk about the next trip, the next adventure. How lovely is that?