A Little Answer

   There is a question that everybody seems to ask me.  My friends, family, colleagues, even my doctors, all ask the same question, "Jillianne, what made you want to get a kayak?"
   So here we go, it's short, I promise.
   It wasn't because I went kayaking or because I saw it in a movie or I heard that the cool kids in school had one.  It must have been the fates, divine inspiration, two objects destined to be together: me and kayak.  Because in all honesty, I just woke up one morning and I knew.  The thought flooded every bone in my body, my heart ached from longing.  I needed a kayak.
   I would constantly be looking for one online, scavenging through eBay and Craigslist, searching for that perfect kayak.  Whenever Patrick and I went to Academy, we always stopped by the kayak aisle so I could just look at them.  At times I would even take a picture of them for my phone's background.  My parents' emails were full of links and coupons that I had sent, hoping they would start to get the obvious hint and put their heads together to get me one.
   Some say I was obsessed with the idea; I like to think I was in love with it.  In love with the thought of being out on that still water with the sun beaming down on me, the sound of the water being paddled past me, the birds' chirps surrounding me, the canopy of trees casting its cool shade over my legs and face.  It consumed my thoughts.
   Until finally, after begging and pleading to anyone within earshot and my mother actually banning the word "kayak" from the household (me being the smart aleck that I am, whenever I said it and mother would yell at me, I would simply claim that I was saying the word backwards, which, coincidentally is still kayak), graduation and my birthday rolled around, and I received more than enough generous funds to buy everything I needed for college.  Which meant that my dream was in reach.  I took my wallet down to Academy one morning and purchased the love of my life.
   And I tell you what, seeing my beautiful bright orange yak strapped to the top of the car.. there's not a feeling quite like it.  And anyone who argues that are the ones who haven't been out there with me.