I never imagined I'd become someone else's greatest adventure.
Months before I met my husband, a friend gave me one of the most thoughtful gifts I've ever received. It was a beautiful replica of Ellie's Adventure Book from the Pixar movie Up.
If you've seen the movie, you probably remember the book. Ellie fills it with dreams of adventure, places she wants to see, and things she hopes to experience. Eventually, it becomes a collection of memories from the life she shares with Carl.
I absolutely loved it, partly because adventure has always been such an important part of my life. I've never wanted to look back and see nothing more than years on a calendar. I want stories, photographs, experiences, and ridiculous memories that still make me laugh twenty years later.
So naturally, I started filling the book with photographs from Chicago and Colorado, memories from trips I'd already taken, and plans for places I still wanted to explore. There were plenty of blank pages, and I was already imagining the experiences I would eventually add to them.
South America was definitely at the top of my list. There's a line in Up that says, "It's like America, but south." I'd been repeating that line for years, and I genuinely couldn't wait to visit South America just so I could say it while I was actually there. Apparently, I was perfectly willing to plan an international adventure around a Pixar joke.
At the time, I had absolutely no idea what was coming.
Sunday Fundays
When my children were growing up, we had a tradition I called Sunday Funday. The concept was simple: Sundays were for doing something.
Sometimes that meant visiting a museum, exploring somewhere new, or finding something interesting nearby. I never believed that making memories required extravagant vacations or a lot of money. Sometimes all we needed was a little curiosity and a reason to get out of the house. A little adventure before the week began again.
Some of my favorite memories with my children came from those ordinary outings, but looking back, I realize those adventures served another purpose, too.
I was raising my children mostly on my own, and there were seasons when life was incredibly difficult. There were circumstances I couldn't change, problems I couldn't immediately solve, and times when simply getting through the week required just about everything I had. I couldn't always protect my children from the challenges we faced, but I could sometimes change how they experienced them.
There were moments when I deliberately turned a difficult situation into an adventure. Not because everything was wonderful, but because I wanted my children to have something to look forward to, something to be excited about, and memories that weren't defined by whatever we happened to be going through.
I couldn't always make life easier, but I could often make it interesting. Sometimes I could even make it fun. And occasionally, something that felt overwhelming to me became an experience my children would remember as an adventure.
Of course, there were also plenty of days when simply getting everyone fed, dressed, and out the door was an accomplishment. But we went anyway.
Over time, adventure became more than something I did with my children. It shaped the way I approached life. I learned to look for possibilities when things didn't go according to plan, to find joy in unexpected places, and to keep moving forward even when the road wasn't particularly easy.
I didn't necessarily recognize it at the time, but somewhere among all those Sunday Fundays, I was learning resilience.
The Life I Was Already Living
As my children grew older, the adventures changed. I traveled more, explored new places, and continued making plans for the experiences I wanted to have. Sometimes I shared those adventures with people I loved, and sometimes I went on my own.
There were difficult chapters along the way, of course. I'm approaching midlife, not emerging from a Disney movie. Life has given me plenty of opportunities to figure things out the hard way.
But I'd built a life I genuinely enjoyed. I had children I adored, work that mattered to me, places I wanted to visit, and plenty of things I still hoped to accomplish. I was proud of the woman I'd become and the life I'd created.
That was why Ellie's Adventure Book felt so meaningful. It reflected something that had been part of me for decades, long before I knew what the next chapter would bring.
And then I met Adan.
An Unexpected Adventure
If you've been following along, you already know that my husband and I didn't exactly take the traditional route to marriage. We met, fell in love, and forty-six days later, we got married.
Apparently, when I said I wanted more adventure in my life, the universe decided subtlety was unnecessary.
Suddenly, I was married to a man from Colombia, learning Spanish, discovering new traditions, getting to know an entirely new family, and trying to explain American football to someone who grew up believing fútbol was the only reasonable use of the word.
One of the first movies Adan and I watched together was Up, in Spanish, of course. I'd loved that movie for years, but watching it with him felt different. Here was this familiar story about love and adventure, playing in a language I was still learning, beside a man I was also still getting to know.
At some point, Adan said something to me that I don't think he could possibly have understood the significance of.
"You are my greatest adventure."
Now, there's something you should know about my husband.
Adan walked across Central America to reach the United States.
When I think about the countries he crossed, the distance he traveled, and what it must have taken to keep going, I struggle to comprehend the magnitude of that journey. I wasn't there, and I won't pretend to understand everything he experienced along the way.
His journey wasn't the kind of adventure I'd spent my life collecting in photographs and scrapbooks. There is an enormous difference between choosing to explore the world out of curiosity and undertaking a difficult journey with real consequences for your future. He knows that difference in a way I never will.
This is a man who has crossed countries on foot, faced challenges I can barely imagine, and built a new life on the other side of that experience.
And somehow, he looked at me and told me that I was his greatest adventure.
I don't think he was trying to make some grand statement about everything he'd endured. He was simply telling me how he felt. But knowing even a little of what it took for him to get here made those words almost impossible for me to comprehend.
Here I was, a woman who had spent decades raising children, finding joy in difficult circumstances, traveling, rebuilding, and learning how to create her own happiness. I'd spent so much of my life being the person who planned the adventures, made the memories, and found ways to keep everyone moving forward.
I had never really imagined what it would feel like to be someone else's adventure.
And certainly not the greatest adventure of a man whose life had already taken him so far.
There was something incredibly moving about that realization. Neither of us had arrived in this relationship with an empty life waiting to be filled. We each had our own histories, experiences, and stories that had shaped us long before we met. Yet somehow, in the middle of lives already well underway, we'd found each other.
The Pages We Haven't Filled Yet
I still think about the little Adventure Book my friend gave me before Adan entered my life. I love that I'd already begun filling its pages, and that South America was among the places I was dreaming of visiting before I had any idea I'd fall in love with a man from the excat place I’d been dreaming of visiting.
Those earlier chapters of my life matter a great deal to me. The Sunday Fundays with my children, the adventures I created during difficult seasons, the places I explored, and all the experiences that helped make me who I am today.
Now there are new stories to add. Colombia, certainly. The family I've come to love there, the places Adan wants to show me, and the experiences we're beginning to share. I imagine there will be plenty more travel, cultural misunderstandings, and photographs than any two people reasonably need.
There will also be ordinary Sundays with both football and fútbol, responsibilities, and unexpected challenges. I'm looking forward to those moments, too, because I've learned that adventure doesn't always require going somewhere extraordinary. Sometimes it's simply the experience of building a life together and discovering what comes next.
I don't know what all the remaining pages of our story will hold, but I'm excited to find out.
I've always believed that adventure was waiting for me. I just never imagined that one day, I'd be someone else's greatest adventure, too.
♥️
