Chasing Sunsets

As I walk in to my room, after a long and very tiring day of working a crappy 9-5 job, I take off my clothes and hop in my pajamas and lay down in bed. While I lay there staring up at the glistening stars that litter my ceiling, I think to myself, “How is this where I am right now?”

I am 24 years old and I am still living at home with my parents. I work a dreary and very want to kill myself style job at the textile plant down the road in rural Wisconsin. I do the same thing day in and day out and it’s starting to become a strain on my social life and on pretty much every part of my life elsewhere. I do make a very decent salary where I work and have saved a lot over the years but, I haven’t got the backbone to just drop everything and move on to something better yet. I think about it constantly and have been waiting for the right push I’ll say to do it but, I haven’t seen it yet.

My parents are pretty much the average couple. My dad is a doctor at the local hospital and my mom has been a secretary for a shipping company as long as I can remember. We always have the same routine every night. I get done work and come home and mom is already there with dinner being made while dad is watching his programs on the idiot box. We always sit down for dinner and have the same conversations about how our day was and what’s on the agenda for tomorrow and dad reams me out for being a loser without his own place and girlfriend. I sit there quietly in disgust at myself and realize that he’s right while mom tries her hardest to bite her tongue and keep what she has to say to herself.

One night, Mom decided to have a very long discussion with me regarding my future and my aspirations in life. She told me about before she was married how she travelled the world and saw the coolest sites in the most beautiful places on the planet. I asked her why she stopped doing all of that in the first place and she said that she met my father. They were so happy together and they wanted to start a family so, they moved here to Wisconsin after Dad got his residency and they had their baby boy (me). She decided to take a pushy job as a secretary to make ends meat and pretty much to give her something to do when my father wasn’t around. I asked her if she could than would she ever go back and change anything and she replied with, “How could I change anything? If I did, I would never have had to the most beautiful boy ever.” I cried a little bit after that and then she said that the reason she named me Adam Venture Robinson was to solidify her love for travel and adventure in her son and in hopes that he would follow in her footsteps one day. I thought to myself, “How corny is that. Adam Venture as in ‘adventure’. Wow mother! What a stretch.”

For a couple weeks, all I could think about was that conversation with mother and it made me think that maybe it’s about time to get out and make my own fun and adventure of my own. I was in the attic one afternoon looking for a suitcase to start preparations for my venture when I came across an old chest of my mom’s. When I opened it up it was like watching the discovery channel unravel upon me. There was guide books, travel gear, maps of various places, and a journal that said on the front, “The Great Unknown”. As I opened the journal a piece of folded up paper fell out. I opened the paper and it was a world map that said, “Wanderlust” at the top of it. I was intrigued right away as I glanced over this map. It had check marks of all these different places in the world that my mom had been to and I was shocked. She was a well-traveled individual to my surprise. I gathered everything up and went downstairs to start thinking of how I was going to pull this off.

The day I planned to leave was not what I expected. I had went and got my own map and circled all the places I want to go and some I should check out and bought my own journal to document my travels. When I got home for dinner, I sat down with my mom and dad at the dining room table to finally break the news to them of my plans. My mom was surprisingly very cheerful and happy for my decision however, my dad dropped his fork and went on to proclaim me the biggest idiot in the world. “What are you thinking? Are you out of your mind? You won’t last or survive out there without our help behind you. You are nothing but a scared little pussy of a boy and you’ll be back home before Christmas!!” my Dad screamed in anger at me while hammering back whiskey. “You know what fine!! You go off on your little adventure and you have yourself a good time but, don’t think that there will be a place here for you when you return” he said sternly. With that said I grabbed my bags and walked out the door to get in a cab to the airport. My mom met me at the cab and said ever so lovingly, “Son, I hope you have the most wonderful time out there and write to me all the time. There is so much more out there than you can imagine and I hope you find what you are looking for and true happiness is awaiting.” I hugged her, told her I loved her and got in the cab. When I got to the airport I had no real idea of where to start so, I asked the clerk what her first flight out was and she said, “Costa Rica”. I took the first flight and I was off.

Eight long years had passed now since I decided to take the leap and leave home and my life couldn’t be any better. I have been all over the seven continents. I’ve seen the beautiful sands of the desert, the lush and rich greenery of the rainforests, the storied ruins of dynasties long forgotten, and the whitest beaches from all over the world. I have a beautiful wife named Estefania and the wildest and most beautiful little girl named Charlotte June or Charlie as she likes to be called. We live on a pretty quiet and peaceful island in the Caribbean and I run a charter boat now.

One crisp July evening I received a call from my father. He went on to tell me that my mother had been very sick lately and she had died the night before last. He said that she had been asking about me for a while to see how I was but, she didn’t want to worry me and put a wrench in my life for her. It had been about a year since the last time I talked to her and she seemed fine then. My father asked if I could make it for the funeral and without hesitation I said yes of course. I packed up the wifey and Charlie and finally returned home. The funeral was a lot for me to handle. I hadn’t seen my father since the day I left eight years prior and there were so many people just gawking at me and sort of quietly whispering to themselves while looking at me. When we were all at the graveyard, standing around her casket and trying to say our final good-byes, I walked up and pulled a folded up piece of paper out of my pocket. I stood over the casket and opened up what was once a beacon of hope for myself. The paper was my mother’s map of the world and it read, “Wanderlust. You’ve finally seen it all!!” I put it on the top of the casket gave her one last kiss good-bye, turned and walked away.

As I sit on my deck, on an island far from the reaches of home, with my wife and my beautiful daughter, with tears over-whelming my face, I look up into the night sky. I stare at all of the stars around us,  beaming with light, shining down with hope and amazement, and the only thing that I can think of is something my mother said to me a long time ago.

“This world is a gift to all of humanity and it should be shown the respect and admiration it truly deserves. You can spend your whole life chasing sunsets and be completely content but, when you find the truest beauty in your life you will know it and that is when your real adventure finally begins!!!”

I will always love you Mom…