{we shall not cease from exploration}

Merry almost Christmas!

Done with school (or more accurately, done with exams) for three and a half wonderful weeks. I have a stack of books, a list of movies, a mental file-folder full of recipes to try, miles of running routes, and a sunny house filled with family. This is going to be a quiet break, which is exactly what I need—nothing as exotic as last year (seriously, who goes to Hawaii for Christmas with their best friends?)

About three-quarters of my bucket list involves travel. Hiking Kilimanjaro, seeing the Northern Lights, yachting off Capri, hiking to Macchu Picchu (actually, come to think of it, most of my bucket list also involves hiking…hmm).

 

I speculate that this stems from a pre-emptive strike against my fear that I will end up living in the suburbs for the rest of my life and never get to see what else is on this pale blue dot we call home.

I started this blog at the beginning of the summer because even with a full-time job, I had more free time than ever before. The name “A Life Explored” was more wishful than anything. I didn’t feel like I was doing a whole lot of exploration. Everything in my life was familiar, and not that exciting. That was a concept especially hard to swallow when my original plan for the summer had been to go to Japan, to learn about and explore a place entirely different from what I knew. And granted, it ended up better than expected—I reconnected with old friends and found little pockets of happiness that lightened the tone of the whole summer back into positive territory. But that summer has ended, and now a new chapter of life is on the horizon.

Well, 2012 is already looking up to be a more geographical kind of exploration-based year. On the docket (so far): Honduras, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Sweden. Three separate trips I’m equal parts excited and thankful for. And I’m determined that this isn’t going to become ‘that year in college when I traveled’, but the beginning of a lifetime of travel, of exploring creation, of living my life to the fullest out of gratitude for the fact that I did not do anything to deserve or earn this life but was given it, out of God’s grace.

Here’s to adventure. Here’s to exploration. Here’s to life.

Now let's get off the Internet and go live it.