One Day...

“Hey Gia, what’s that new word that isn’t really a word but now it may as well be since everyone is using it and it means that you REALLY want to travel?”

“You mean ‘wanderlust’?”

“Yeah, that’s the one! Thanks!”

Gia walked over to where Lauren was sitting at their kitchen table. It was located directly under the only window in the front room of their two-bedroom apartment. Although they had bought it together with every intention of sharing countless meals at it, laughing over and celebrating their culinary escapades in turn, it was almost never used for eating. Instead, half of it had almost immediately become Lauren’s designated work space, since it was well lit and far enough away from her bed that she didn’t feel tempted to slowly sidle away from her laptop and take a nap in the middle of the day when she should have been working. As respectful as ever, Lauren was posted up on the other half of the table that was typically completely empty and clutter-free. At the moment, however, the table was occupied with Lauren’s newest “Dream Big” turquoise notebook, an array of colorful pens, and Lauren herself.

Although Lauren habitually bought notebooks anytime she was within a 7 mile radius of a paper store, she very rarely wrote in them, and her first attempt at doing so had piqued Gia’s interest.

“What are you writing that you needed to know the word ‘wanderlust’?”

“Promise you won’t laugh at me?”

“I would never.”

At her response, Lauren gave her a look that said more clearly than words ever could, “yeah right.” Gia smiled sheepishly, ok so she was always laughing at Lauren. But she couldn’t help it, Lauren was hilarious. Gia had never met anyone who was funnier just living their day-to-day life. Her mind worked so differently than anyone she’d ever met and she seemed to use everyday conversations as a testing ground for some of her most ridiculous, out-there, fantastical thoughts and ideas.

“Ok, ok… but seriously, I promise I won’t laugh at whatever you say next.”

Lauren didn’t look any less nervous and took a deep breath before admitting, “I’m writing my New Year’s Resolutions.”

She didn’t make eye contact with Gia until the sentence had fully made its way out of her mouth and into the air in their apartment where it was sure to have reached Gia’s ears. 

Confused at this extremely normal confession - especially by Lauren’s standards, who had only just yesterday asked Gia in all seriousness if she had ever considered that Elephants and Rhinoceri might have been genetically similar enough at one point to procreate and that’s how hippos were created - Gia waited to hear the rest of it.

Lauren’s eyes bulged out of her head at Gia’s silence, and when her head shook slightly in less a bobblehead motion and more in line with the movement of an exasperated thirteen-year-old, Gia realized that was it. That was the big revelation.

“Why would I laugh at that? Don’t most people write New Year’s resolutions? I mean I guess most people do wait until after the New Year, but I guess there’s no harm in getting a head start.”

“Well, I mean, you don’t write them.”

“Yeah, and I thought you didn’t either. What made you change your mind?”

“I don’t know…. Life, I guess. It just dawned on me that next year I’m going to be 28…. 28! I mean that’s practically 30! And I feel like I haven’t done half the things I wanted to do in my 20s. And now they’re almost over!”

“Whoa, calm down Laur. You’re still just 27. You won’t even be 28 until May.”

“You don’t understand, you just turned 27. It’s different for you.”

At this, Gia couldn’t help but chuckle. Leave it to Lauren to somehow make their 6-month age gap feel like 6 years.

“I’m serious Gia. Time is slipping by. I need to grab hold of it before it’s all gone.”

“Let me see your phone.”

“Why?” Lauren asked while handing over her phone.

“I just want to see something real quick.” Gia found what she was looking for in record time. “Yup, just as I suspected. Did you download every single Jay Shetty and Tony Robbins podcast in existence?” Scrolling through Lauren’s podcasts app she could see that Lauren hadn’t just downloaded about every episode of every popular motivational speaker’s podcast, but also listened to all of them.

Lauren snatched her phone back out of Gia’s hands. “That has nothing to do with it. I just want to live the life I know I’m capable of living. I want to reach my full potential and I’ll never do that without clear goals, and the New Year is a perfect time to start!”

Gia had to stop herself from pointing out that everything Lauren had just said sounded like a direct quotation from every basic self-help book created since probably the 1970s – or maybe even ever.

Instead, with the same look a mother would give a world-curious 5-year-old, she said, “Well, let’s hear what you’ve got so far.”

“Ok, but just…. Just keep in mind that I just started and these are only the first drafts.”

With mock seriousness Gia pulled her face into a more obligatory expression and prepared to stifle any sarcastic retort or fit of laughter. She had known Lauren long enough to know that with that much uncertainty in her voice about what she was about to reveal that Gia was in for a doozy.

“#1 Help the poor.” She stopped for a moment to look at Gia, clearly making sure that she wasn’t going to be laughed at. But Gia had prepared herself well, and clearly Lauren only read “go on” in her face, as she immediately turned back to her notebook and continued reading.

“#2 Start a side hustle. #3 Go on dates with 2 guys I wouldn’t usually consider my type. #4 Experience wanderlust.”

She stopped and Gia realized she’d gotten to the end of her list.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘experience wanderlust’?”

“Well, I’ve never had an intense desire to go somewhere I’ve never been before. I mean yeah I see pictures of people on vacation and think ‘that’s so cool, I want to do that too, or go there too. But it doesn’t really have to do with the place, more just the idea of being on vacation and having fun. So, I want to spend the year trying to discover a place that makes me instantly and intensely want to go there.”

“Got it. But, and I don’t mean to be a killjoy here, don’t you hate traveling?”

“Well so far I have yeah, but that doesn’t I’ll continue to hate it. Everyone keeps saying how great travel is and how it really opens your mind and helps you see the world in a new light. I mean sure I hate airports, and airplanes, and taxis, and taxi car drivers, and I still get lost in LA when I’m using Google Maps, but it might be good for me ya know?”

Gia didn’t know, but Lauren gave her explanation with so much enthusiasm, excitement, and optimism, that Gia just couldn’t bring herself to say or do anything to ruin it.

“Yeah, no completely. You never know what can happen right?”

“Exactly! Life is so exciting! I mean anything can happen any day… your whole life can literally change in a day. Every single decision you make matters. Every single decision you make takes you either closer to or farther away from all your goals and dreams. And this year, I want to only make decisions that bring me closer to my dreams!”

Lauren’s smile was almost too big for her face and her enthusiasm was clearly too big for their small apartment to hold for she leaned over and open the window next to their table, leaned out, and screamed “I’m ready for you world!”

At this, Gia finally laughed, but it was only because Lauren, whose head reappeared inside their apartment as quickly as it had disappeared out of it, had broken out into the happiest peals of laughter it was possible for adults to achieve – the kind of laughter that only came natural to small children and the extremely senile elderly.

“Well, all I can say is I just hope the world is half as ready for you.” 

Lauren’s smile didn’t fade for the rest of the day and she wrote so many resolutions down in her notebook that she’d filled the first two pages up to the point where almost no white showed through.

While Lauren got back to work writing down her resolutions, Gia worked at her laptop across the table, reaching out to several of her clients to check in with them and see how their relationships were doing before checking her list of weekly goals to cross several items off and see what else still remained to be done. She hadn’t yet gotten started writing the script for her first ever podcast episode and although she still had four more days until the end of the week, she knew that there was no better time than the present to get things done. Who knows what the next few days could hold? She may have plenty of time to get it done, or something could come up unexpectedly and stop her from even getting started. She wasn’t about to take the chance, and by the end of the night she’d written her entire first script, 2 full pages of perfect copy that expressed exactly what she wanted it to. She crossed another item off her to-do list before going to bed, marveling for the millionth time at just how much it was possible to get done in a single day. She had already forgotten that January 1st was only three days away.