Tiny Adventures

I'm home for the weekend and that  means I got to help decorate the house for Christmas. When I was a kid, I LOVED setting up all the decorations. Still do! So I went out to the shed to get the various boxes and lo and behold: I found my brother's longboard. It sat there and mocked me for being a chicken and never taking it for a spin.

Ok, so I don't board. At all. I was always jealous of people who were good at any type of boarding activity, my brother being one of them, but I was bad at it. I wondered if I only thought I was bad at it, though, because had I ever actually tried it? Not really. When I was a kid, I'd hop on my brother's skateboard and then get scared that I'd lose my balance so I never really gave it a chance. 

So I dusted off that old longboard and started inching down the driveway. Then I took it to the sidewalks and the street, too. I lost my balance. I had to jump off of it a lot to avoid mailboxes. I looked stupid. Yeah, I still kind of sucked, but not as much as I thought I was going to suck. I tried something new and that's cool because trying new things helps you grow and I am all about growth. And you know what? I saw myself improve and learn things about it in less than 15 minutes. 

Anyway, I had a few ulterior motives for riding the longboard for the first time, but one of them was that my accounting class is requiring me to write a paper about my experience going on an adventure/doing something I normally wouldn't do. So I thought about it and realized that adventures don't necessarily have to mean you're going to the mountains or the open sea or something. They can take place in your own driveway, at the dinner table, or in your own head. I think that the act of trying something new is an adventure in itself. Just experiencing things for the first time is so cool and it's adventurous to get a little outside your comfort zone.