The tragedy with living life through travels is knowing that your little nieces and nephews only know your name from late Birthday cards.

The porn star quit because she no longer gave a fuck.

The two female penguins were friends from the start. Coupled best friends. The second their eggs cracked simultaneously and their mamas and papas pushed them toward their future's, they shared the same goal: get the hell out of Antarctica. 

The summers were too cold, the winters colder, and the constant threat of Orcas munching on their flippers were just not in their agendas. They wanted more out of this life. They wanted experience, adventures and memories.

All of the others saw life in black and white. You were an Arctic penguin, you were born here, you would find your soulmate penguin and make babies, or, you leave, and wouldn't.

Together, they threw out the script. Together, they formulated a plan. Together, they planned their escape. Together, they chirped all night long and in to the next day, every single day, of the adventures they would share. Together. Everything was together.

Together, as the plan was, they would set out in the morning in to the brisk freeze of the Arctic ocean, so early the sun was barely awake. Together, they would take that first dive and swim their tails off to the first floating ice sheet. Together, they would take breaks and eat fish and continue the swim of their epic journey to warmer waters. Together, they would finally lay on warm sand.

Until one day, a mister penguin introduced himself to one of the two. It was a disaster;  the kind you always think your penguin friendship is too strong to ever happen to.

The male penguin became her life. The talk of warmer waters became smothered over what she would catch her new soulmate for dinner. Dreams of the bright sun, turning to what they will call their first child.

Their 'togetherness' became more and more spaced. Their 'their's' becoming more 'yourselves,' until finally, they were no longer two. They were separate. Their dream no longer "their's."

The lone penguin was so very sad. She tried to find her other half in all of the wrong places. Disinterested in all of them, disinterested in keeping the home tidy, and she was so sick of the cold. She stayed this way for awhile, in her own snowstorm of feeling stuck, until she couldn't fake it anymore. She did not belong here. She never did.

Others watched in judgement as she waddled to the edge of the ice sheet. After a moment of consideration, she dove in to the brisk freeze of the Arctic.

Alone. 

Singularly, she took her first break on an ice sheet. Singularly, she caught her breakfast, her lunch, and her dinner. Singularly, she looked up at the stars at night. Singularly, she noted when the water became less bitingly cold. Singularly, she swam and swam and swam, until..

She waddled out of the warmer water and, exhausted, laid on the warm sand. The sun hugged her whole body, and she smiled, knowing that she made it. And she did it all by herself. 

She likes it better that way, she thinks.