I definitely didn’t imagine this being my first adventure,
but the beauty of life is in its simple unpredictability. Friendships are not always chosen, but rather
you fall into them and if they are good you keep them. I fell into friendship with someone back in
high school, and the goodness has kept us afloat throughout the years.
I quite frequently visit my friend Barb on weekends, and
every hour and fifteen minute drive up to her house is worth the
shenanigans. She lives with her
boyfriend, Tony, and three children who have all adopted me as family and have
given me a reason to stay in the forsaken tundra of Minnesota. We have our differences, but all of my
friends are different than me, and the differences are what bring color and
challenge and adventure into my life.
When you have someone who has your back and genuinely cares about your
happiness, you keep them.
I had just returned from visiting New York over the
holidays, my hometown and past life lingering in my soul as I tried to re-adapt
to Minnesota. Every time I go home to
New York I experience a strange haunting of my childhood that follows me back
to Minnesota in a wisp of a ghost that takes a while to evaporate. Either I was overwhelmed by my travels or I
picked up the stomach bug that was nailing literally everyone in my life, I got
sick. I was still trying to recover when
I decided to push through and go see Barb last Saturday anyway. Even though I continued to be sick Sunday
morning, it was totally worth it.
Human beings are marvelous creatures. We are aware that boredom and the mundane are
a threat to our survival, and if we don’t do something drastic to entertain
ourselves we potentially fall in spirit.
I forever embrace anything that keeps my spirit from falling, as crazy
as those things might seem to those who have more elite options of
amusement. Hence the following
adventure:
After the kiddos were sound asleep we tried to figure out
something to do to entertain ourselves.
Often we pull out board games and pour drinks and take stupid pictures
and have plenty of laughs, but none of us were feeling up to that this
particular evening. As a joke, Tony
presented the idea of running around the house barefoot in the snow. We’ve had an amazingly warm winter so far,
but the arctic forces had finally cruised our way and the temperature this
evening was eight below zero with a wind chill so cold it could crystalize your
facial hair in two seconds. Running
barefoot in the snow seemed like the most stupid thing in the world to do.
It turned into a sort of dare, which turned into a “Well I
could do it down the road and back, where there’s street lights and there’s not
snow up to my ankles…” I, at first, was
very “Mommy would say you’ll get frost bite!” kind of attitude. I was terrified of getting frost bite… But the more we joked, and the more we
talked, and the more we were prodded we realized that it actually might be an
exhilarating thing to do. I had put out
that I needed motivation, like, “Give me a hundred bucks, and I’ll do it” sort
of thing. But then the idea of
video-taping the insanity came up, and I’m a show-off who will do almost anything
in front of a video camera… So as pride was tested, and show-offs were
challenged, we gave the greenlight.
The challenge: hat-less, glove-less, sock and shoe-less, run
to the end of the short road and back again.
I say “short” relatively…
The door opened. The
hot air from inside steamed up our exit as it hit the subzero air outside, and
we plunged into the dark, artic air in screams and laughter. I wish I could say I thought of interesting
things as I ran down the road, like sentimental, beautiful things that would
flower up this story, but truth be told all I thought about was, “This is
stupid! My feet are on fire! Frost bite!”
The pain was both excruciating and exhilarating. Half way back to the house I didn’t think I
could make it, my feet were in so much pain.
But then the daunting reality hit me that: You can’t stop. You HAVE to run home. And that is what sent the adrenaline pumping
so fiercely as if I was being chased by a bear, and I ran like a lunatic, like
a child who was pretending to run from an evil wizard, like I was an actress
escaping an alien invasion… It. Was.
Awesome.
Back in the house our feet were in so much pain it made us
laugh maniacally. As we thawed out, as
the pain ceased, we found that our feet felt extraordinarily relaxed. It was awesome. It felt like someone had given my feet an
hour foot massage. No frost bite. Not even a freezer burn… We were fine, and exhilarated, and laughed
and laughed and laughed and laughed.
When you find good friends, you keep them. Especially when they can keep your spirit
from falling.
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