Nature Nostalgia

Today was a good day . . . after I was done going to work and adulting for eight and a half hours, that is.

As an adult, I would hardly describe myself as the “outdoorsy” type. When I was younger I was a little more open minded to it. Then I went camping for two weeks with a friend and her family. After that I decided I never wanted to be voluntarily homeless again.

Now, that’s not to say I don’t have an appreciation for nature. I do. Quite a bit, actually. Granted, my admiration of it is usually from afar, but that is hardly the point. If you consider how easily I get lost, how clumsy and accident-prone I am, and how quickly I fry beneath those sweet UV rays, well, my aversion to the outdoors honestly becomes more of a survival instinct than anything, really.

That said, in my childhood years (like many other children) I enjoyed going out and exploring. Woods, rivers, you name it. But in my adult years (like many other grownups) I work full time. This does not leave me as much free time as I once enjoyed, so I’ve become more selective with my hobbies. So getting sunburned and eaten alive by mosquitoes kind of sat on the back burner for the most part.

Today was different. Today I ventured into the great outdoors (aka- my neighborhood’s park) with my best friend of 20 years. Our other companions we had visited the park with were preoccupied playing Pokemon Go and were promptly abandoned when we spotted a groundhog (aka- woodchuck) (aka- snufflehog) in the distance. So while the others in our party looked for virtual critters, she and I reverted back to our little kid selves and ran around the park tracking cute real-life critters. We kept a respectable distance and didn’t try to catch any of the little animals but it was exciting finding so many woodchucks, turtles (including a big old snapping turtle) and other little creatures. That, combined with the exploration aspect of it definitely brought about a feeling of nostalgia. I realized it had been far too long since I’ve gone tromping off into the woods to see what was out there. It just goes to show that pushing yourself out of your comfort zone once in a while can be a great thing. What is life without little adventures here and there to break up the monotony of daily adult life?