My dog, Lilly, and I decided to go for a quick walk around our cul de sac when she suddenly froze as we approached a path leading into the creepy forest. Just as quickly as she froze, she bolted down the path and let all of her energy go, pulling me along with her. She raced through the brush and sniffed everything she possibly could. She found a particularly intriguing twig that looked like a hand grasping for air which she hurriedly picked up and continued running. Lilly then spotted a squirrel sitting in the middle of the path and jumped into action, chasing it up a tree. She barked and barked until she was sure that she had terrified it enough. She darted from tree to rock to bush as her tail wagged ferociously and her tongue hung out of her mouth dripping with excitement. She had covered all that ground in such a short time and all the while, I was trying to keep up with her. All I wanted to do was get out of the dirty path and away from the all of the awful aspects of this eerie forest. But Lilly would not listen to my yells saying,  “Come! Please! I want to get out of here!” I continued to watch her frolic and play in what I thought was a dangerous, bug- infested forest and I paused.

As I stood there out of breath watching my dog have the time of her life, I felt something I never would have expected to feel in that moment. The feeling of my heart pounding against my chest with blood racing through every vein in my body was so incredibly thrilling. I had forgotten what it felt like to let go for a little while and just give in to an impulse decision. To experience the wind in my face, the sounds of nature, feeling the warmth of the sun tingle on my skin when the leaves let in a crack of light was something I hadn’t done in a long time. My dog never seemed to lose that sense of adventure and thrill  一and I was jealous of that. As much of a time-waster as it may seem, it’s so important to have some impulsive variety in life. Those are the moments that you will cherish forever. And I needed to realize that.

As we began to see sunlight peeking through the end of the forest tunnel I looked at my dog, as she panted with a smile on her face and decided to follow her lead. I took a deep breath, and let my legs fly beneath me. We ran to a different forest path, and I finally learned how to let go.