Adventurous Soul

2018 Volkswagen GTI Looking out on the Blue Ridge Parkway, September 2019

I was called adventurous recently. It struck me, immediately, as incredibly odd. I don't feel adventurous. Nor have I ever felt adventurous. In fact, almost everything that I have ever done has felt rather mundane, or at the very least, done out of what felt necessary at the time.

For example, the first time I moved away from Indiana. I can see why someone would imagine moving across the country without a job, or prospect of a job, to be adventurous. Really, though, it just felt like my life had grown so stagnant in Indiana that I felt as though the air was strangling me, not allowing me to live.

And I think about that now. I was so lost in life, as we all are, but the amount of conscious understanding that I was lost was suffocating.

I often times think that we all feel similarly enough, but the biggest difference is how cognizant we are of the feelings we are having. What I mean by this is simple, we all feel burnt out and like we are craving more life than what we have, but if we aren't conscious of that feeling then it manifests in an entirely different way - like discontent with our spouse not taking out the trash when we think they should, or getting overly disgruntled because our order is wrong at a restaurant, or traffic not moving along quickly enough making us irrationally upset, or whatever other various miniscule problems make us irate.

Except, most of those things have never really bothered me. I am more than accepting of someone prioritizing something over taking out the trash (but, let us be real - I am always the one expected to take out the trash in my relationships). Now does it upset me when my order is messed up (I am the problem, not the person taking my order). The traffic one will get to me, but I also am acutely aware that mostly it is because my life feels so stagnated and trapped as it currently is that it is taking me away from where I want to be - home.

When I think back upon my time before ever moving away from Indiana, though, it reminds me that I felt that same way then, as well. Except, the world felt huge. The world felt grand, and as if it could never swallow me whole, and it felt like somewhere within that world I could find something that no longer made me feel like the mere act of stagnation would be suffocating.

Of course, that never actually panned out. I moved away, I worked a plethora of professions, I have lived all over the country, I have traveled across country like the average person would travel across town - albeit, obviously with far less frequency - and none of it has ever led to me feeling any more freedom.

I don't consider that being adventurous. Adventurous feels like jumping out of an airplane, free diving with sharks, wrestling with venomous snakes, and things of that nature. Even, to some extent, riding rollercoasters feels more akin to adventure than anything I have ever done in my life.

And that is the thing - I would be the last person to do any of those things - other than a rollercoaster, but I don't enjoy those anyway.

I suppose, however, that it is all relative. If you're someone who doesn't travel, who has worked a steady job for most of their adult life, who has never been conscious of your own discontent in life, then I would imagine that taking risks the way I have does look adventurous.

Also, while I have never found what it is that I have been searching for my entire adult life, I still think that one of the greatest things I have ever done is move away from my home town - my home state. The amount of knowledge that I have acquired, specifically about people but also about life in general, from living all over the country is beyond what can be put into words.

Likewise, the things a person will learn about themselves by placing themselves in a wholly new place, without a safety net, without a backup plan, and sometimes without even friends, is potentially the greatest gift I have ever given myself.

Sure, it has been exceptionally hard at times. Putting your trust in the wrong people to help you out and having them fail on every imaginable front, so you're left having to sell off every valuable item you have - which isn't much - just to survive for an additional month until you figure out a job situation isn't fun, but it can teach you how capable you are in figuring things out. The isolation one can feel when they are laying in bed at night, wishing they had someone to talk to, but not knowing anyone at all and being too broke to go out and do anything can be incredibly trying on your mental state, but it can also leave you alone with yourself enough to figure out the parts of yourself you truly like - and not just the ones you think you like because other people like them about you.

So, no. I am not an adventurous person. I am just far more aware of how the feelings I have impact me, and I have spent my adult life trying to find something to alleviate those feelings from being so prominent.

-Dustin S. Stover