Have you?

Have you ever wanted to run away? I know that is something you've asked yourself, or maybe phrased it a bit differently but the sentiment is the same. Have you looked at your life and just wanted to walk away from it?

That's a horrible thing to contemplate, isn't it? We build our lives up and then when things are going good or bad or just the same, we get tired of it, and just are tired of carrying all the baggage that we have given ourselves.

I have a lot of baggage. I've spent decades trying to figure it all out. I'm not that unusual, I think. At some point, I gave up. Federal deficit? Don't care. Communists at the gates? Don't care. War on Drugs? You know, do what you want. Those were things I cared about at one point. I can't say I care at all anymore. Yeah, I can look dispassionately upon it now and see why people care either way. I just don't anymore.

I'm at a turning point in my career. I have a lot of new possibilities ahead of me. A lot of new things to do and become involved in. After a decade of saying "We need to do this." it seems that someone listened. So we're doing it. I'm learning new programs and getting more responsibility.

I would probably leave it all without much prompting. Over half of my life is over. I'm not living where I want to live. I'm not doing what I want to do. I'm living. I'm staying alive, living for my responsibilities and commitments. Have you ever felt that way? I'm living to pay the bills. I'm here because for now, it provides me and the people that depend on me money and opportunities that they need. Myself? I feel burdened by stuff. The weight of it all is holding me down.

I have a friend that is tooling around, or was, Southern Utah and Arizona. I love it down there. So much so that I have some land there. Will I ever live there? I don't know. God, how I want to climb around on the sandstone and feel the desolation, the emptyness and...the age. I want to feel the age of the earth and how insignificant I am. I have a hard time doing that amongst the cornfields.

I'm taking a trip soon. I'm going to see a mountain for the first time in about a year, if you consider the volcanos of Hawaii mountains. Most of what I will be seeing will be long dormant volcanoes. I love the mere idea of volcanos. I fully expect to stop often and stare, knowing soon I'll be back in the land of flat, unending corn. I want to meet new people. I want to see new things. I want to feel new dirt.

During my schooling, I desperately wanted security, comfort. I obsessed over it. I ground my teeth down with the stress of making a life for myself, for my family. Now? Now I want to sit on a rock, maybe with an old friend sitting opposite me, Maybe some new friends. I want to watch the sun come up over the mountains and set in the sea.

I don't know how many years I have to do this. No one knows how many years they will be on this mudball. I feel this new and different kind of pressure. I hope I can bear it well.