The Road Trip to Nowhere, Part 1
I'm still processing the weekend I just had. I am genuinely glad to be alive and grateful for the many people in my life that I love. I am extremely grateful that my work family patiently and empathetically listened as I processed through word vomit today. In order to fully process my experiences this last weekend I will have to write it all out. But today is not that day.
I will instead focus on one small conversation. The point where we decided to turn back.
The plan was to drive from Portland to Orange County over two days. We got as far as Redding, CA about 417 miles in to the trip, when I suggested that we stop to sleep and then turn back to Portland in the morning.
My uncle said, "But it will feel like such a waste. We just drove to nowhere."
We were much closer to Portland than our intended destination and for a dozen reasons I thought it was better to turn around than to keep going. I could always fly back home.
So my response to my uncle was this, "We didn't go nowhere. We took an exciting one day vacation to beautiful Redding, ash covered...near the Lake Shasta fires, Redding." My uncle laughed and he soon agreed that it was indeed for the best.
This was the point in the trip that I stopped pretending to be the co-pilot and just took charge. The truth was we both charged into this road trip with little preparation, no return plan, and no concept of the physical toll it would take on my uncle (and emotional toll it took on me, but that's for another time). So I called it. I changed our course, I rewrote the plan.
Sometimes we have to turn around. We have to be brave enough, humble enough to abandon bad plans.
If Life was a Dream, and it was my dream...this was not an ideal dream and I'd really like to wake up. But, also...this was the perfect metaphor for every calculated risk, or fool hardy decision. You have to be willing to drive 417 miles only to turn back to the starting point when it becomes clear that it is the right thing to do. Sunk costs, travel time already spent, doesn't matter. You have to be willing to get over the feeling of having gone "nowhere." There is something to be learned from every trip, even if you didn't get to your intended destination.
I called this Part 1, but I don't know how soon I'll write the other parts of this story or if I'll write them for the blog at all. I have some more processing to do before I do that.