Big Love
First off, I’d like to apologize to you all for taking so long to release my next blog post. All is well; I was just getting myself settled in back home in Ohio. Even though at the end of this week I have to move back to school. I still have the pleasure of posting blog posts on Parables & Books website, while I’m away at school, and I’m super excited about that!
What I’d like to talk about today is love. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I hear love, I automatically think of true love; the kind of love that everyone dreams about finding one day between themselves and another person. But what I want to talk about today isn’t about that kind of love, but the love a person can have for something they do or something other than another person. That overwhelming joy that someone can feel for something that makes them feel more real and alive than anything else. Lets call them big loves.
I have many loves in my life, but one of my big loves is of dolphins. It must have started in sixth grade, when my Girl Scout troop made a sleepover/field trip to SeaWorld and we saw the dolphins up close and personal; it was love at first sight. I loved the way the dolphins swam around the tank, gliding and dancing through the water. They were so full of life. I was speechless. It was that day that I decided I wanted to be a Marine Biologist, for the simple reason of wanting to be as close to dolphins as often as I possibly could.
Now as you can probably tell, I am no longer reaching toward becoming a Marine Biologist. When I started college classes, I realized that my love for dolphins wasn’t strong enough to get me through the math and science demands of the field, and that my true calling was to become a writer. But my love for dolphins has never wavered. It is still one of my biggest dreams to be able to swim with dolphins one day. I’ve actually been able to see a dolphin out in the wild once and it practically brought me to tears. I was speechless again. For me, it was just one of those experiences where I had to stop and take it all in, because I couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy and alive.
Which brings me to what brought this blog topic on; I just watched the film, Dolphin Tale, for the first time two days ago. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it, I highly recommend it. It is a very inspiring film, based on a true story about the life of a dolphin named, Winter. Now the fact alone that it took me this long to see it is shocking. I’ve wanted to since the first day that I saw the preview. Anyways, simply watching the movie, rekindled my love for dolphins. I’ve been researching ever since and found out that there are many ways and places to have a dolphin encounter experience, and I plan to in the next year. There is actually a very good program, where the movie was based off of, Clearwater Marine Aquarium, called trainer for a day. Basically, you get to work with one of the trainers for four hours, helping train and feed the dolphins. It’s a dream brought to arms length for me.
That’s the thing about life, it presents everyone with their loves and dreams, but its us that have to go out in the world and get it for ourselves.
