Two months ago I was crossing Europe’s largest continental glacier… a lot has changed since then. The only thing I am crossing is the North Beach Pool bridge, as I walk the length of the pool yelling for Makos to “kick! kick! kick!”

 

I’ve had trouble adjusting to my seemingly adventure-less RVA suburbia life. I’ll periodically scroll through my posts and watch the adventure level dwindle away as my most recent posts appear. As I was deciding whether or not to post about my coaching job, I was told that:  “adventure is just a perspective.”

I was then prompted to look up the definition of ‘adventure’ on dictionary.com. 

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Ad·ven·ture [ad-ven-cher]

verb

¹An exciting or very unusual experience

²Participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises

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So, I began thinking of my swim coaching job as an adventure. Coaching a summer swim team is definitely an ‘exciting undertaking.’ As coaches, we invest time and energy into the team, and in return a passion grows within us. That passion makes things that might seem ordinary to some, very exciting. Whether it’s watching an angel shark blow their bubbles, or cheering on the neck-to-neck relays at 10:00pm every Tuesday night, it’s exciting.

Unusual. Most might ask: ‘what is unusual about being a swim coach?’ Well my response to that would be: when there are kids involved… it’s most likely unusual. Kids have an innate tendency to be brutally honest, inspiringly imaginative, and cheerfully silly. There are so many moments when I am left thinking: ‘How am I supposed to answer a question like that?’ Or: ‘How does their mind come up with that sort of thing?’ And not to mention: “What on Earth is that kid talking about?!” A fellow coach of mine, Elena, and I have an ongoing discussion about how excited kids get over the smallest things. We try to do the same– jumping up and down, and exclaiming our joy over minuscule things such as a new straw color at Starbucks… it just doesn’t work as well for us. Unfortunately people grow out of those traits I mentioned before, more often than not. But that’s a whole different topic– let’s save it for another day.

I know calling my everyday job ‘an adventure’ might be a stretch– especially compared to survival trips and foreign city exploring– but if there’s one thing I’ve recently realized*, it’s this:

Life itself is one large unknown, and it doesn’t get any more adventurous than that. 

So despite my current (and TEMPORARY) mountain-less, tent-less, non-risky, travel-free life… with the right attitude, it can still be exciting!

*Disclaimer: ‘Realized’ might be a tiny exaggeration… I still haven’t fully kicked the travel-blues. Tips?