The Road Trip of Life

Once again my well laid plans of actually blogging has hit the wall as per usual.... Well put that hatred of being denied such divine writing as mine for so long aside and rejoice in the coming of more entries starting right now.

I am currently planning a huge (well huge to me) event that is going to mark a major item off of my bucket list (and yes I actually have one... don't you?). I am planning a 16 day road trip across the country. I will be traveling from Myrtle Beach, SC all the way to San Diego, CA then following Route 66 back across the country stopping in Louisville, KY and Nashville, TN on my way back to North Carolina. It is going to be amazing and I am very excited. Although as I plan this trip it makes ponder on the course of my life and the people or lack of people in it.

What has brought me to this point in my life? It is amazing to me that I even have the opportunity to take this trip. What amazes me more so than having the chance is that I am actually getting up and making it happen. I have always envied the people I see and talk to that seize every opportunity in their life to experience the world. How many people have I sat and listened to, stranger and friend alike, weave their tales of adventure and excitement. How even the mundane, when re-told in such light, seems worlds above what I myself have experienced. I am a man from a big family in a small town, one of those towns that most people never get out of. Who would have thought that I could see the world, or even this whole country? It fills me with an undeniable giddyness to know that I am actually going to do what I have only seen in movies and heard in stories.

Now comes the other end of this spectrum... It is in these monumental life moments that you stop and look around. Only when everything seems to be going a million and a half miles an hour can you ever truly stop and see the real picture around you. What I see when I look around is a half life. Something that, while yes it is a life, it seems only half full (or half empty, either way something is missing). I have no one that can truly share these moments with me. No one to check off their bucket list while I do mine. No one to high five or celebrate with when something totally awesome happens. Those events that you know no one will believe even if you did catch it on camera. It would be a real treat to have someone to at least corroborate how totally sweet that cactus we saw in the desert was. (Just an example... I hope something better than a sweet cactus is the highlight of my trip...). I don't know if there is some greater plan to this world, or if it is just me and my own ingenuity, but I know that I am really tired of waiting for something to happen. I am getting out and this is the first step. I will see what happens in life when I am pushing the limit instead of being dragged along by it... There is definitely more to come on this story...