I
am not known to be spontaneous or adventurous. In fact, I am quite the
opposite. I plan out every last detail of my days, and I never do things
without thoroughly thinking them through first, especially if they involve
money.
Picture
this. It's 1:30am and you and your best friend/roommate are sitting on your
bed, scrolling through various social media sites. You happen to stumble upon a
Tumblr post by bestselling author John Green about the upcoming Paper Towns
movie tour in Indianapolis. "That would be fun to go to," you say.
"Too bad it's tomorrow." Your best friend turns to you and says,
"That would be fun to go to..." She's giving you the
look. The one that says, "Come on, you know what I'm really saying."
You remind her that you have work tomorrow and there's no way you can just up
and leave like that. She argues that you're young and need to be adventurous
for once. You sit there, silently taken aback by the fact that you're even
considering such a thing. 1:30 turns into 2, and suddenly you're packing a bag
and making a list while your friend takes a shower. You're going to
Indianapolis.
This
sounds totally crazy right? Believe it or not, it's completely true. My best
friend Rachel and I decided to go to Indianapolis, Indiana at 2 o'clock in the
morning on a Tuesday. My stomach was fluttering with nerves, but I also
couldn't stop smiling with excitement.
I'll
spare you the details because it's a long story to tell. We got to listen to
the author of the book, John Green, and two actors from the movie, Nat Wolff
and Halston Sage, talk about the movie. We also got to see 20 minutes of the
movie before anyone else. Nat and his brother Alex performed a few of their
songs, which made me cry because their music is everything to me, We spent the
rest of the evening wandering around downtown and eating at the Hard Rock Cafe.
When
we got home, I didn't want to sleep because I was afraid I would wake up and it
would have all been a dream. But that's the thing: it wasn't. It actually
happened. We actually went 36+ hours without sleep and drove 18+ hours in a
sparsely air conditioned car. We actually saw the coolest, funniest, and most
authentic author we know. We actually did something risky and spontaneous for
once in our godforsaken lives.
So
if there's one thing I took away from this, it's that sometimes the best
memories come from the things you don't plan. For all you planners out there
like me, take a step back every once in a while. Instead of paving the path in
front of you, let the path be paved for you. In the words of Ferris Bueller:
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a
while, you could miss it."
