Remember that one time when I thought everything could be planned and organized? Somewhere in a box in my mom’s garage is a journal with my 1, 5 & 10-year plans. I had my life mapped out. I have it tattooed on my feet. I even went to school for Event Coordinating! Life was something to me that could be accounted for and accomplished.
Thankfully over the last couple years I have acquired a skill and gift to balance out my over-the-top scheduling: spontaneity. Learning to let go and enjoy the ride as it happens was so hard for me to get used to. I felt a loss of control. I felt like life would be too messy that way. I was afraid that if I didn’t have a plan, I wouldn’t see or do all of the things I wanted to. And boy, was I right! Life is messy, I will never see ALL of the things I dream of, and the control was never mine in the first place.
“Geeeeze Keetz, don’t be such’a spazzz!” That is one of the most uttered phrases my little brother Clif used to tell me. From day one, my more rigid, all-figured-out, plan for the future mindset has been balanced by his easy-going tendencies to figure it out as it comes and laugh the whole way there. As a “planner” this used to drive me absolutely insane.
Even all of my seemingly haphazard adventures and cross-country relocations had been planned out. I knew the “who, what, when, where and why” before I set off. Until January 2013, when I left home once again for Ft Lauderdale. I had a one-way ticket, a place to couchsurf for the first few nights, and a dream. It was the most unprepared and petrified I have ever been. Somehow with a little luck, determination and a lot of networking (read: socializing over drinks. Lots of drinks) my goal to work and travel on a private yacht was achieved. It was one of the most gratifying times in my life. I knew everything I had accomplished was because I took chances and let life happen as it came at me. There is no planning, scheduling or having it all figured out when you are in the yachting industry. I learned that lesson over and over in the course of the next year. In time, it became an integral part of who I am.
Learning to enjoy the unrehearsed and natural flow of life has been so freeing. It is so fun. Life was never going to listen to my plans anyway; all they were good for was to cause me unnecessary stress. Life is not something to be accomplished, it is an everyday adventure to be enjoyed. No matter how messy or unpredictable it may be.
One day early in my job hunt, I was feeling defeated; ready to pack my bags and abandon my dreams in Florida, when I received a text from Clif: “There’s no such thing as a wrong turn when you’re on an adventure.” Which is basically a more inspiring, mature way of him telling me to not be such a “spazzz.” But no matter the phrasing, he has been right all along.
2013 in Ft Lauderdale with my favorite couchsurfer turned bestie, Brittany ❤
Getting Lost 