I was lucky enough to find myself having fun with people who were complete strangers to me not one month ago, and despite that I was always losing willingness to make a journey to a city which was new with people who were unknown, I found that outside of my comfort zone was exactly where the most beautiful part of the world existed and thrived. That fine Tuesday, the sun had lost its fiery and the hot summer noon had eased into a calm evening in the scorching desert sand and all around me, people were talking and cheering.
We set out with a group of twelve; the mission of the day was to ride squads through the desert, and each and every one of us was elevated. That may very well have been my own excitement being projected to the rest of the group. It took a while for the managers of the little club to get six squad cars ready for us all, and while we split into teams of two, those in charge readied the rides for us. After thirty minutes of chatter and excitement, we were all prepared for takeoff.
My partner was Joana, a girl I had learned to love and respect because of her great sense of humor and because she kept the mood light regardless of the circumstances. Through that journey of a few hours, she became the truest of companions.
With helmets on and Joana at the wheel, we set off for the adventure full of anticipation and exhilaration. In riding those squad cars into the desert, everyone of us looked like we had let the inner child in us become in charge because we were reckless, and we were free, and for those few moments, we were fearless.
We had to stop a few times to let a few others catch on and to fix problems with cars where they arose. A few of us were racing each other and having playful fun. We sped past each other, and we jumped off of tall sand dunes, and my own heart skipped several beats on countless occasions.
at the moment, my heart felt what happiness in its purest form looked like, for it was not just the thrill of the speed that day, or that will to live to the heart’s content, but the greatest driving force behind the pleasure was the feeling that we were around people who made us happy.
Brian Blessed, a very wise man once said
“You can't call it an adventure unless it's tinged with danger. The greatest danger in life, though, is not taking the adventure at all. To have the objective of a life of ease is death. I think we've all got to go after our own Everest.” (Blessed)
That was the day when I had found my Everest, and since then, every struggle has taken me closer towards the dream of meeting new people who share the same dreams and with whom I could enjoy countless moments of uncertainty.
The end of the journey brought us to a beach, a very beautiful one which seemed to have remained untouched by the evils of human activity. There was no litter, no objects or a thing which would have robbed the place of the vision of absolute beauty that it was. We spent time there some of us swimming while others are walking and taking pictures. At that moment, I had the world within my sights, and all that I wanted to stay happy was right there; amongst people whom I had come to know only in the past few weeks and those I wasn’t sure I was going to see again.
As the sun started to hide behind the horizon, it was time to head back, and this time, I was at the wheel. My experience there was more reckless than it was for Joana and at a few points, she went far enough to call me crazy. We strayed from the beaten path a few times, and then, we always managed to find our way back to our friends. On the way back, there were more incidents of reckless behavior, and we were jumping off of higher sand dunes.
Then there was one moment when the jump was too big, and Joana flew off of the carrier that she was sitting on but thankfully landed back to where she was sitting. It was only luck that she did not fall off because the jump was quite steep and the angle of the squad car not perpendicular to the ground.
That was the moment when I had almost killed her, and she told me so right there. I also judged how bad it almost could have been from Clinton’s expressions which was just driving by with his squad partner.
I was not until much later that the intensity of my mistake sunk in because it took very long for me to get rid of that elevated mood. Even after that incident, though, the playfulness never stopped, and it continued all the way to the main road until we entered the club for the second time that day.
Of course, everyone had to call me crazy after we got a chance to reflect back on the day’s events and we had a good laugh about it. But every time the incident of Joana almost falling off was recited, the truth of the matter became clearer and clearer. I had almost killed the girl I had grown to love in that very short time. And she said it too. Every time I called her my squad partner, she would remind me of the time when she had almost fallen off.
At the end of the day, we had to separate, but only for a short while. Some of us were going deeper into the desert while the others to a more historic destination. When the time finally came to say goodbye to my squad partner, there was no accusation in her eyes or any complaint regarding what had almost happened. I could see it there. She was just as sad at leaving as I was, and we were both thankful that we had become this family to each other so far away from home.
The time we hugged the final goodbye made a number of things clear to me; it was the moment that gave me immense hope for if a stranger had come so close to me in three weeks, there really were people in the world who will always have your back. That negated one of the worst fears I had about life and lively things in general; one who kept reminding us that it is a big bad world out there.
Joana and I still keep in touch and she still she still reminds me of that time when I almost killed her, but what really surprised me that day was how that incident had brought us closer rather than driving us apart. Joana is a name which stands for a lot of things, and one of those things is how there are still events and people in this world who are worth having hope for.
Works Cited
Blessed, Brian. "Brian Blessed Quotes." BrainyQuote. Web. 19 Jan. 2017.
