I’m a girl who likes a good adventure.

I think I’ve always been this way, but in the last few years various circumstances, obligations and commitments, along with a healthy dose of career building, have prevented me from doing as many bold, daring things as I’d have liked.

Actually, that’s not quite true. At any point I could very well have said, “Okay here we go!” but you know how it is:  when you get busy, you get complacent about your life, until you wake up one day and realize that life is passing you by. Sometimes going through the motions of the day is just so draining that there’s no room left for adventure, or exploration, or even happiness.

Isn’t that sad?

Well, I’ve awoken from my reverie, and I’m ready to go. I’ve decided that this year is a year of change for me, and it’s a year of self-discovery. I plan to get excited, take a risk, take a stand, love my life, love other people, love myself, and mostly, to drop all of my preconceived notions.

And last night, that’s exactly what I did.

Sometimes you think you’re not ready for something, and when you just close your eyes and jump right in, you realize that the only thing holding you back was yourself. Let me tell you what I did last night. I tried something new. Several somethings, in fact.

I started with barbequed duck. So what, you’re thinking, lots of people eat duck. And that’s true. But I didn’t. I thought I didn’t like it. As it turns out, I like it very much. It wasn’t my first time eating duck – I also had it last Saturday, and that WAS my first time. And both times it was delicious.

Next up was Burdock root. When I saw that on the menu, my curiosity was instantly piqued. I love vegetables, but being a small-town Canadian, my range is somewhat limited. Burdock isn’t native to Canada so you can’t really buy it at the local supermarket. Unless you live in Toronto and take the streetcar to Chinatown. But I digress. So the kinpira gobo was ordered and thoroughly enjoyed. It really was fantastic – gobo is a root vegetable, which I happen to love, and it was lightly sauteed in sesame oil with carrots and black sesame seeds. It had a spicy aftertaste thanks to some red pepper flakes. Amazing.

The last thing I took a chance on surprised me very much. I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I love Japanese food and sushi, but I’ve never had raw fish. I tell people I don’t like it but in reality, I’m just afraid. Again, it’s the preconceived notion that meat and fish should be cooked. So I’ve always stayed away from sushi that had fish in it, and if you can believe it (most people can’t) California rolls were also on the banned list. Why? I don’t know. The crab (usually imitation) isn’t raw. Maybe it was idea of eating roe that grossed me out (I’m not a caviar kind of girl*). Anyway, I was in such an adventurous mood last night that I thought, what the hell. And guess what.

You guessed it. I loved it.

I thought a lot about this on my way home. I thought I didn’t like this stuff. I thought my life was full enough without it. I thought what I liked, what I ate, and what I had was good enough. But when you fall into the good enough trap, sometimes you don’t see the really, truly fantastic things that are right in front of you.

And then, when you open your eyes and see that you’ve jumped head first into something amazing, you wonder why you waited so long to take a risk.

* Actually… maybe I am!!!