This life lesson relates to my previous blog #38 Eat at a White Castle Restaurant.
During this adventure I flew to Florida with two of my closest friends, Dave and Branden. The purpose of the trip was to buy a BMW and drive it back to Canada. On paper, the task sounded easy but we had to overcome multiple challenges and worked together to make it happen. A combination of time pressure and a Category 3 hurricane made our trip even more exciting.
I have known Dave and Branden since I was five years old and grew up on the same street as them. We have always been close friends but it seems like every time we go on an adventure, we become closer. This was not our first adventure and was definitely not our last. Dave and Branden have been present for a few of my other bucket list adventure as you will read in my future posts.
Every time I go on an adventure with Dave and Branden, or any of my close friends, I return home with endless stories and memories. Sometimes they are weekend missions or large overseas trips but I cherish the adventures all the same.
High school is easy because you see your same friends every day and typically you are not faced with too many “adult commitments” to worry about. After graduation, everything changes. Your circle of friends splits up when some go off to university and others go into the workforce. As life goes on, your circle of friends will start to disperse even further across the country or the world. In my circumstance, I was the one who moved from Canada to New Zealand, literally the other side of the world.
The frequency at which I see my close childhood friends has reduced to once per year or sometimes longer. For this reason I have learned to cherish the time that I do get to see them, especially when we have an adventure planned. Even though I live so far away, I have been able to go on a couple of other adventures with Dave and Branden since living in New Zealand. I travelled with them to Australia in 2015 and then to Indonesia in 2016. These adventures mean so much more to me now because of my circumstances and I’m sure they cherish our travels a bit more as well.
Although this lesson was not apparent to me immediately after our trip to Florida, it is something I have learned over time. It is reinforced every time I return from our latest adventure and I am sure the adventures will continue in the future.
The main thing I have taken away from this lesson is not to take these adventures for granted but also not to cease trying to make them happen due to living on the other side of the world. We always seem to pull a trip together, despite work commitments, life commitments or proximity to each other. We could never repeat one of our trips, no matter how hard we tried but that is also why I cherish them so much.
Do you still travel with your childhood friends? Are your adventures always filled stories and memories? Let me know in the comments below.
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Dave has been on a mission, since 2010, to cross off the 100 items on his bucket list. The stories of his adventures are complimented by life lessons learned along the way and his travel tips are unique to his experiences.
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