Day 1 – May 20 – Off and, well, Strolling

After a night of late preparations and little sleep, I was up before the alarm, eager to load the car and take care of last-minute preparations. I had hoped to get out the door by 8 a.m., and when I started the engine to pull away, the clock read 8:30 and I was pretty satisfied.

Loaded and ready. Had to run each of the cats and Dexter out.

After a few stops in Sioux City to tidy up a thing or two at work and exchange a few goodbye hugs there, I  topped off the gas tank and dropped my resupply packages with Twila, hugged her goodbye, and headed west by 10 a.m.

I stopped in Wayne to say goodbye to Jesse, my dear friend and often travel companion. He helped me with a few last-minute tasks, insisted I sterilize my water packs, and helped me install my in-line water filter. But more than that, he offered his usual confidence in my abilities and parting words of caution to always take it slow when in doubt.

Saying good bye to Jesse is one of the hardest things I’ve done, and I was emotionally wrought when I hit the road. He’ll be gone when I return, off on his own adventure for a new life on the east coast. I’ll miss him desperately – we tried the romantic route and when that didn’t work, remained close for a lot of years, and I’ve taken for granted that he was always just a 45-minute drive away. Although I know he’ll always be just a phone call or Google chat away, the distance is a hard reality to swallow.

Endings are something I still struggle with. I know the reality that nothing really ends, just as nothing really begins, but I get so attached to the people and situations in my life. When they shift, as they inevitably do, I often spend a lot of energy figuratively kicking and screaming against the change. And although I’ve seen, time and again in my 50 plus years, that the shift is always a forward movement, working to evolve me and those others involved, I still resist.

Campsite at Fort Kearney State Rec Area

I think that resistance to change is really a desire to relive, re-experience the good things that arose from a relationship or situation. I seem inclined to yearn for more of what I had, whether it was actual experience or emotional experience. I realize the futility of such behavior, yet still I often resist and yearn. I sometimes even resist when I know things are better for the change – simply fighting to keep the familiar familiar. I see this pattern being revealed in so many situations in my life, even trivial ones. I watched the final episode of “The Office” this week and teared up over that.

These experiences, these losses, are so important for personal growth. If we didn’t have things leave our lives, we wouldn’t have room for the new, the surprising, the gifts that are just waiting to present themselves to us. It’s important to remember that once those departing relationships, those experiences, were new and eased themselves into the holes that were vacated by earlier losses. Why the attachment, then, I cannot understand. As Mr. Spock says, it’s just not logical. I already fight the changes less fervently, and look toward the new more readily, so perhaps some day it will not be a struggle at all.

So as I drive away from Jesse and the nearby presence he’s been for the past three years, I drive toward the next experience, the next connection, the next gift this life has to offer. And as I sit here near Kearney, Nebraska , writing by the campfire I built from wood I scavenged and tinder I arranged carefully, I let go of the desire to revive and relive the past, and I simply sit and enjoy the moment. It is here, of course, and only here, that I find peace and joy and all that I am looking for.

Scavenged the wood and collected tinder. Only one try in damp conditions. I was coached well.