Of course all this introspection of life and what has happened and what is happening leads to a more interesting question, “What do I want to happen to me?”
Last year I took a trip to Oregon. I took it for a host of reasons. One of the things I did before the trip is to educate myself about the state. In the past, I never looked to closely at the state with the thought that the politics of the place would probably drive me crazy. While the hard conservative states of Utah and Arizona were fresh in my memory and deserving of some of my contempt, quite honestly, I didn’t think a hard left turn would be appreciated either. I’d like a little more balanced view to my politics. Well, my departure from my former faith had me re-evaluate a lot of my life and politics no longer played a role in my life. I simply no longer cared. I was happier without politics in my mind. So, with the help of Facebook, I could investigate this state a little more.
I’ve mentioned several times that I have fallen in love with volcanoes. I have developed such a fascination with the earth since moving to the Rockies back in 1984 for college. Tracy facilitated my education with Southern Utah and that area and volcanic activity was evident there. What once was a mundane interest became fanatical. On our frequent trips around the area, I was always on the lookout for old lava fields and cinder cones and almost anything volcanic. Learning that Yellowstone was a super-volcano and that the hot-spot it vented was once under Oregon and the Cascades helped fuel my interest in Oregon.
Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, the Sisters and Crater Lake were some of my early targets. Photographers took pictures of them and were readily had. I looked at maps and photographs and web-pages, anything I could to educate myself on the area. Nothing prepared me for what it was like to actually visit.
I spent a day with a friend of mine there. It was before I took to the roads solo. For informational purposes, I’m a very driven wanderer. I drive hard and I practically live out of my car. I am also a minimalist. I usually forget to eat. I just want to see things. Thing is, I’m also very reserved. While my friend is showing me the coast, I spent a lot of time looking when inside I’m jumping up and down, running in circles by how the whole place is just so fascinating. She took me up into a river cut and I was almost beside myself with glee. Columnar Basalt! My first columnar basalt was viewed on that one of those days. How much I just wanted to scream with delight at what I was seeing. My God! A whole wall of the stuff! There is a lava tube that cooled and splayed out the columns! AAAHHHH!
Did I let it out that I was seeing things that were completely freaking me out? No. I just looked intently. While she might know I’m a nut, I’m also supposedly a respectable professional with profound psychological issues. I didn’t need that compounded and remove all doubt of my insanity.
When I again hit the road solo, I provisioned at a Walmart and off I went. I had already bonded with the area and it was manifesting in some odd ways. Sisters was very disconcerting. I had expected a certain layout and I wasn’t seeing it. It was early in the season and some roads I wanted to take were closed. It was capping off an emotional morning in an odd way. I did re-center and what followed was about 7 days of the most fun I’ve had in a long time. No, it wasn’t a Disneyland kind of fun. I didn’t camp or even settle in an area for more than half an hour before I was off again. There was so much to see and do. I knew some of these places from pictures. My experience at Mt. St. Helens was not expected as I awed at the crater before me. Heading back to Portland from a southern excursion, I made a call to Tracy with a declaration. I found where I wanted to die. My previous plans for retirement? Blown to Hell.
Tracy knows, one of the few that do, how passionate I can be about certain things. I can feel some things so strongly and usually she can drive reality into my noggin and put me in my place.
When I arrived back home, we had a series of discussions. What do we want to do? What will make us happiest? When were you really happy? Do things make you happy or does something else?
I know I’m not the only one having these conversations. I’ve spoken to many of my friends and they are at that point in their lives too. What do we want to do with what remains? If I’m not happy here, where do I want to go?
So we drive onwards towards our visions of paradise, and they change over time. Sometimes that change is profound. Sometimes it is an enveloping contentment. For many, it is the journey to the goal that drives them on. Whatever the reasons, whatever the time, please look at your life and find your passion, find your happiness and if it is off in the future, work towards it. I can’t act on our big goals yet, there are financial and family concerns, but we have a goal and we have a plan. It was a complete change of plans from just a few years ago, but change is part of life. Luckily, I have someone in my life that will listen and still finds being with me more interesting than being without me. On living out West, it isn’t a compromise though. On that, we agree. Just how that will happen is part of our process.
Life certainly does keep itself interesting.
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