Antarctica? Yes, Antarctica
I've spent most of the past year feeling like life had no more "magic" in it. After spending most of my years with a sort of child-like awe toward most anything, I hit this point where I felt simply nothing. I wasn't sad, or happy or really anything. I just "was." Where I used to marvel at the little things such as a blue sky or the feeling of a breeze, I spent my days just existing. Each one came and went without any notable moments of wow.
I suppose it comes from two things. 1. a desk job: you wake up each monday, get through the inbox until you get to friday...spend the weekend thinking about all you could be doing only to find it's 5 p.m. on sunday and then the dread of another monday sets in before you get to any of the could be doings. And 2. no big goals to go after: I usually had something that I was striving toward - an Iron Man, a business idea, a trip - anything that had a date on it where I would come out on the other side feeling different than I did going into it.
So, as those days came and went one thing lingered in the shadows - the thought that I needed to do something different, something cool, something out there beyond the ordinary grind. After several months of this back of mind wishing, I got an email from my amazing and dear friend Tom.
"Want to go to Antarctica?"
Yea, right. Me? Sure I want to go but how? My mind blew it off at this point. A day later, another email - "let's go"...
Slowly, I came around to the idea that he was asking me to go with him on the trip of a lifetime to celebrate a milestone birthday. I slowly went from no way to why not? The part of me that had been dead quiet came alive and said "yes, I'm in."
Since that moment, it seems that so much has changed. The days have flown by faster than I can say "another monday." The trip is a mere two weeks away. In the meantime, I've began packing, I've been reading all I can on Antarctica, I've watched "March of The Penguins" and all the DVD extras.
And I've been pinching myself and saying "I'm actually going THERE."
Instead of questioning the how and why I got to be so lucky, I've instead focused on just being thankful that I'm no longer feeling nothing. I'm now feeling very much alive again with something. I've got butterflies thinking about being on an icebreaker. I've got dread thinking about leaving my dogs, my girlfriend and my job for a 3 week period. Both are awesome because it's just good in general to know that I actually have
feelings again.
It seems there are a million things to take care of and do between here and there but that's how it is with anything like this. Instead of freaking out about it all, I'm staying focused on what it will be like to see my first iceberg. Yea, I'm going to see real icebergs in a real ocean instead of just looking at photos of them. Wow.
In closing, I'm just going to say, thank you, Tom. Thanks for the trip of a lifetime and thanks for all the intangible things that change in one's life as the result of going on a trip of a lifetime.
With that, I'm off to dream another night about penguins...
Labels: antarctica, friendship, penguins, vacation