New Challenges For This Twenty-Two Year Old

"Take your risks now, as you grow older you become more fearful and less flexible. And I mean that literally. I hurt my knee this week on a treadmill, and it wasn't even on."   - Amy Poehler

I turned twenty-two last Saturday in Michigan thanks to a wonderful vacation present from my boyfriend. We took off from Wisconsin on his motorcycle and proceeded through beautiful weather and roads around Lake Michigan for nearly six hours. Two sore butt cheeks later, we are settling into our teeny-tiny hotel room looking out at Mackinac Island. It was perfect.

Also a perfect escape. Now that I have graduated from college and am sending applications to a couple dozen companies, I do not have time to be a child much longer... or do I? I thought about how my parents grew up, how cousins grew up, and how frankly I want to grow up. I'm still young, and I did not want to fall into the age old cycle of work - TV - eat - sleep - repeat the daily grind.

So, I've issued a challenge for myself. This year I will try twenty-two new things. Key being it's new. This will push me into uncomfortable areas, maybe fears, and hopefully by the time I turn twenty-three I will have plenty of advice to give myself. haha. But I really do want to do this as a growing experience for myself and to extend my experiences, relationships, and over-all quality of life. One big motivation for me is a tragic event that happened to my ex-coworker/friend back in April. She is a great mentor and I look up to her in more than just professional ways. Her family life was the epitome of what I wanted and her husband was as equally a brilliant and caring man. My boyfriend and I both respected and saught to be as accomplished as they were by the time we reached their age. (We were about twelve years apart.) They were runners, healthy, incredibly accomplished in their fields, and brought a baby girl  into the world, to which my boyfriend and I have had the pleasure of babysitting. Not only had they achieved all these things, they were hilarious, kind, adventurous, and over-all the best human beings in the world.

View from Fort Mackinac.

Sadly, while out on a run, her husband collapsed due to an unknown heart defect. He died that night. The next morning, I received a text from my supervisor while in a Starbucks, accompanying my boyfriend to the interview that would later turn into his career. We were struck hard. My boyfriend had worked with him and I knew him through my co-worker and babysitting their child. One of the hardest things for me to grasp was that the girl (who had JUST turned one) would never know the awesomeness of her father.

Even though he is no longer around, my friend still takes their baby girl on adventures and continues to live life through experiences as I know she would do if her husband was still alive. This spirit encourages me to make the most of my time here. Twenty-two new things should be a piece a cake in a year. Seriously, that's only two a month. I cannot fear what life has in store for me, but simply trek on with family, friends, and kindness. So bring on twenty-two years of life!