Life.
I love life.
I don’t typically think of my life as all that exciting in the dramatic sense. This isn’t because I consider my life dull, so much as that I have much higher expectations of the kinds of adventures I would like to be having. However, when I do stop and think about it, I’d have to say my life is pretty decent on the “exciting” scale, even if it’s not the stuff of epic movies.
For example, I’m living at one of the world’s premiere astronomical observatories now. I don’t consider this “epic movie” drama, because I don’t work here and am not a daily part of its functioning. But, when splashed onto my character dossier, it makes for quite the juicy morsel.
And my life has been full of those. Just to name a few, I have biked in the Sierra Nevadas, been in love (requited and unrequited), worked for two major newspapers (one of which was admittedly a university paper, but with some of the biggest circulation numbers in Seattle), taught Sunday school’s senior class, hiked all over the West Coast (not least among the Sequoia trees and the Joshua trees), gone backpacking for a year, composed music for symphony orchestra, traveled to visit friends in another country, written and directed two plays, saved more than one person’s life through my direct involvement, lived in an apartment with one of the best views in Seattle, met Wil Wheaton, made friends from five continents (and nearly missed six, by not getting to know a potential romantic interest from South America), built a computer, owned a car, piloted a boat, learned archery, eaten Jewish bagels in New York and Los Angeles, had coffee with a lifelong seamate and corporate VP from Ballard (which non-Seattleites may not readily appreciate as dramatic, but Ballard fishermates are iconic), had dinner with a Chinese real estate magnate in the very mall he owned, witnessed my country attacked and shove off for war, had sex with deep friends and total strangers alike, driven hundreds of miles to play chess with a friend I hadn’t seen in years, made paper from scratch, independently arrived at dozens of the discoveries of major historical philosophers, gone to jail, lived up to the expectations of a mentor, programmed a computer game (more than one, if you count the uncompleted ones!), made conversation with strangers on the train, experienced an adrenaline rush of super-strength (throwing a dresser when it fell on my dad), attended what was essentially the first video game music concert in North America and sat in the same auditorium as many of the key figures behind Final Fantasy (including Nobuo!), and of course gone on a great personal odyssey with my novel.
Honestly, however, I feel that, when you get into the nitty-gritty, most of these adventures are not so dramatically exciting as they might seem when presented in summary format like this. In one sense, this is all just a tribute to how long a year really is, and I’ve lived through 29 of them now. In another, I’m an intelligent American living in the modern day—such people have adventures.
But, even if they don’t feel as epic to me as they might sound if mentioned in passing, I have to admit, even just looking at this spontaneous and succinct list, that my life has been an exciting one so far. Perhaps I need to revisit my understanding of excitement.
Perhaps the dream is always an unreachable ideal. The real thing of life has been very kind to me so far. I appreciate that...even if I don't feel like The Most Interesting Mate in the World.
(I removed one last paragraph here at the end, but you can find it elsewhere if you're the sort of person who cares. I mention it only because it causes this little rant to end on a completely different note. In short: The dream is nice too!)
