The most memorable moments I have had, the most magically intense ones, have been unplanned. You know, the moments that feel like the month of December, the sand between your toes, the smell of a barbecue in the hot heat and the warmth of clothes just out of the dryer. I can’t really put into words the way those moments make me feel. They leave me speechless, full of life. It’s one thing to plan goals and dreams, but it’s another to plan out your WHOLE life. We weren't meant to live life by planning lunch and what we're eating. Life is too unpredictable to plan what we’re eating because when we’re sitting there planning on what to eat, things happen.
I can recall so many moments and memories. The unplanned ones are what make my body become warm with happiness. In high school, my first kiss with my first love was quick, short and perfectly unplanned. In another instance I was playing man hunt with my friends the summer of 2007, and the guy that I liked came up to me and tackled me to the ground. I stayed on the ground laughing and he joined me. We looked up at the stars while we waited for the others to come find us. That moment felt like forever but so perfectly unplanned.
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Let me offer up a more recent moment. At this point, I was heartbroken. I needed to repair myself piece by piece. I planned to go out with a few of my friends at the time to get my mind off of things. The thought ran through my head, “I hope someone comes into my life, just to remind me of who I am.” It’s like I spoke too soon, because I met someone for just that night. He was a ranger fan, sarcastic, funny, liked scrubs and How I Met Your Mother. We sat together for hours talking and laughing until our friends decided to leave. We started walking, laughing and talking again. Then we both felt a few raindrops on our skin as we saw our friends run. It started pouring as I stopped and opened my arms to feel the rain fall on my skin. He giggled, made a sarcastic joke and stood right with me. Then he held out his hand and asked for a dance. We danced in the rain and ran into puddles. We got dagger eyes and crazy looks. But we didn’t care, because it was perfectly unplanned.
In another instance, one of my friends texted me asking if I wanted to go for a hike and see a waterfall. It was last second, but why not? Jumping off of a waterfall was one of the items on my bucket list. We walked through the water trails. All of the beauty, the greens, browns, blues and grays. It was gorgeous. We slipped and swam our way to the waterfall and climbed up slimy rocks to see it better.
“You still want to jump?” ….HELL YES.
I climbed up the rope that had been here forever. I had on my crappy running shoes that I got from my old job at Sears and walked to the spot from where he showed me to jump.
“It’s a straight drop from here, you’ll be fine. It’s not that bad.”
He walked away. My heart raced and I felt an adrenaline rush throughout my body. I stood there for a few more seconds, looked down the 40 foot drop and looked back at my friends. I thought, “If I don’t do this, I'm going to regret it.”
I stepped back, took a deep breath and jumped. As my body flew down and into the water, I felt the air around my body moving along the hairs of my body. It was fast; I was free falling. I hit the water and thought: This is what life is about.
Perfectly unplanned. So next time you plan lunch with a friend, make sure you don’t plan what you eat
because you never know... life might have another meal for you.
