Enthusiastically Foolish

Faites des bêtises, mais faites-les avec enthousiasme.

Colette, the French novelist and performer was right. To do foolish things is one thing, but to do them with enthusiasm is another. It means your intent, a fervent desire to make mistakes and allow yourself to learn from them, exists within you. We will always make mistakes, mess up, fall foul to our downfalls and rise up to challenges, even if we fail at them. And as a result we will seem, feel and be foolish. And that's okay.

I have done innumerable foolish things - not grandiose failures - I've lived a fairly comfortable life and safely wandered through it, but in the last few years I've thrown myself on buses spanning from West to East Europe overnight, travelled alone, stupidly ridden home completely wasted in the rain (fun, but kinda silly), taken substances that years ago I would have said "don't be a fool, drugs aren't cool" and I've shrugged shoulders at things to have a good night out which resulted in interesting turns of events. Fairly tame. But for me, something within me said "this is foolish". And I've mellowed. I'd rather snuggle up and watch documentaries than sit in a beer garden in winter watching everyone around me get plastered. And it's just that wintery introversion that throws itself onto me. The days are shortened for a reason and I reach hibernation mode. 

But there are still times I miss being enthusiastically foolish. Like that ride home from the pub in the torrential rain when we stopped in at McDonalds and feasted until our pants, tightened and sticking to our thighs from the rain, no longer would hold our tummies in. Swimming at midnight (again, after copious amounts of alcohol) in the big ol' blue. 

I've been around the company of myself for a very long time, and my foolishness comes out in the company of others. And that foolishness has incidentally brought me so much more happiness, amazing relationships, an amazing person with whom I cannot fault the time I spend, and amazing adventures. So, like Colette, as I face a new adventure of once again moving overseas in a couple of months, I am going to fumble foolishly through this adventure with enthusiasm. Because otherwise we're just fumbling foolishly.