Carpe Diem

My Carpe Diem

Life is too short to sit back and watch it pass by. Take chances and live life to the fullest. Seize each new day while still being responsible. Many opportunities are presented throughout lives that are overlooked. These are examples of carpe diem. I did not realize what carpe diem truly meant until I met John Haulk. He is a risk taker and lives his life in a spontaneous way. Every day with John is a new adventure. My outlook on life changed when I became less uptight, experienced new and exciting things, and began living my life to the fullest.

I met John Haulk in Gwinnett County a few weeks before my junior year at Mill Creek High School. We worked together at Publix and I soon realized that having him as a friend was going to be a lot of fun! John and I raced grocery carts around the parking lot while working. We were also early morning Starbucks buddies. He was in love with my 2001 silver Nissan Frontier and I had never allowed anyone to drive it before him. I trust him more than friends that I had known for years. Almost every time we get together, I let him drive my truck. John's mom is not allowing him to get his license, even though he is 18. Since John had not yet learned how to parallel park, we went to the Mall of Georgia parking lot to practice. I used my drum pad and a notebook as a barrier for parking, but he ran over my drum pad. I also taught him how to get the car moving at about 40 miles per hour and then stop suddenly. The sudden stop was fun because the car skidded as he hit the brakes. I felt the rush of excitement because I knew that my parents would be furious if they knew someone else was driving my truck.

John goes to his dad's house in Hall County every other weekend. He taught me how to ride their ATV when I visited his house for the first time. It was a lot of fun to ride because his dad lives off of a long gravel driveway. The ATV slid all over the road and John did donuts while I was on the back of the ATV. It was awesome, but it scared me to death! We sat on the front porch and named the horses in his neighbor's pasture inappropriate names. As I was leaving his house, we decided to race my truck against his ATV. I drove too fast along the gravel driveway and nearly spun out as I was going around a corner. It was a mixed feeling of being horrified and thrilled.

I went to John's mom's house in Gwinnett and we drove around for a while. We found an old abandoned house that looked like a big log cabin. We parked and walked around the house and even tried