I stare at the map, and feel totally, completely overwhelmed.

I’m not like my friends, most of whom came to the U.S. from other countries to begin with, and all of whom have already traveled to foreign lands before.  (And we’ll just ignore, for the moment, all the other ways in which I feel totally unaccomplished next to them.)  I’m a total neophyte in comparison, even when it comes to the basics.  My mind is swimming with random information about border crossings, visas, immunizations.

It’s hard not to wish, even at my relatively young (middle?) age that I had done more before.  Taken a gap year after high school or college.  Done a semester abroad from school.  Taken more vacations from work.  Even as recently as a couple of years ago, when many of my friends took time off to travel to Manchu Picchu in Peru and I didn’t, telling myself I couldn’t afford to take the time off work.  But was that really true?  Or was I simply scared?

Now I find myself torn between taking the time to try to do at least some traveling abroad (although a round-the-world trip is likely out-of-the-question financially) and returning to work.  I’m uncomfortable being out of work this long.  It’s just not in my nature.  I suppose to no small degree that’s also part of the indoctrination of American culture: work hard and you will be successful.  It isn’t true, of course, and the odds are pretty much stacked against anyone below the vaunted 1%, but we all fervently believe the myth, whether we want to or not.

I’ve even found myself idly flipping through the library’s copy of “What Color is Your Parachute?” from time-to-time.

As well, I’ve discovered it’s easy to let the time go by, which is why I’m here at the library: somehow, in a home, it’s far too easy to slip into relaxation, simply surfing the web and playing stupid online games.  After a few days in L.A. visiting friends (who filled, nay, over-filled my head with travel suggestions), and a couple of nights sleeping in the back of the truck in Death Valley to attempt to clear my head, I returned here to throw myself into research and planning.  But, while I’ve made a lot of progress and done a lot of reading over this week, it already feels like I’m fighting a loosing battle against time.  “Shit,” I think, “It’s already the 12th.”

I stare at the map and feel totally, completely overwhelmed.  Again.

The world is a very big place, and I don’t know where to begin.

Of course, I want to see it all.  But budget and time don’t allow for that and, unfortunately, I can’t go back in time and give myself the international travel experience I wish I had had when I was younger.  I’m torn (as I so often seem to be) between wanting to see so much (i.e. as many countries as possible) and wanting to see in depth (long times in fewer places).  Which is better: a month in New Zealand, or half a month in New Zealand and half in oh, say, Thailand?  Who can say?

(I’m sure there are those who will suggest that I hop on a plane and “just go” but, while I do take that advice to heart, I’m also pretty sure that just going without a plan is an easy way to over-spend money. Fast.)

So, too, am I nervous about traveling afar solo, remembering the highs and lows of the road trip.  As one website I’m referencing succinctly puts it: “traveling alone is far, far better than not traveling at all.”  I totally agree with that, but as some days over the past few months have taught me while packing up wet tents or being sick in hotel rooms, “you will undoubtedly find yourself in a situation where things don’t go so fantastically and not having someone to share those frustrations with or to lend a helping hand can be a little depressing.”  So true, so true…

Mixed in with it all is a bit of fear, just because I’ve never traveled abroad, really, before.  Mix that in with the wealth of choices the world offers and you have the perfect cocktail for… well, for not knowing what the hell to do next.

So I sit, in a reading room in California, staring at a map of the world.  Indecisive as ever.

I am back in California… for the moment, at least. Spending Christmas with the family, and New Years in Southern California with friends.  As for the last four months, my mind is full of thoughts, all of them tumbling all over each other and leaving me… well, pretty speechless, at the moment.

So, let’s talk numbers:

15,868 miles traveled

36 states

1 federal district

3 provinces

3 oil changes

9 National Parks (plus yet-to-be-counted monuments, seashores, memorials, etc.)

And more numbers yet to come.

A quick, and special, shout-out to those that I met along the way (many of whom even gave me a place to sleep): SkyBlue, JustAGirl, Homer-Dog, Miss McCracken, AbsurdBeats, Mel Heth and TGAW.  You opened your homes and friendships to me, and I shall forever be grateful.

I’m not sure yet what 2012 holds (well, other than the end of the world, ‘natch).  I’m sort of caught in between competing desires of further travel and settling down somewhere (oh, yeah, and that whole reality get-a-job thing which, whatever lightness I may display on the outside, is always an undercurrent to my thoughts on a daily basis).

Some moments all I want to do is hit the road or the skies or the trail, others I find myself missing commenting on blogs or reading books or watching geeky television.  I suppose my nature to be a bit contrary in my likes and desires (so many of which can’t be done simultaneously (at least until broadband hits remote wilderness areas (which, frankly, I hope it never will))); hell, the contrarian in me is embodied in my online name.

In other words, rather than attaining clarity, I’m probably more confused than ever.  Good thing?  Bad thing?  Who knows?

But that’s all neither here nor there at the moment.  For now, I simply hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

Just taking a moment from the travels to say hello and wish all of you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving. May all of your tryptophan hangovers be good ones!

Turns out, it’s simple: come down with a cold and end up socked away in a hotel in Maryland for a few days.  Simple, no?

At least the timing was good: weather has been plaguing me for the last month.  Early season, record rainfalls have definitely put a damper on certain sections of the trip, notably my effort to see and photograph the fall colors of New England.  The leaves were pretty, but the rain had already left the top halves of a lot of trees bare, which doesn’t make for great photography.  As for weather and the timing of this cold: there’s a storm outside laying down six inches of snow… in an area that usually doesn’t get any until December or January.

The weather should improve next week as I continue south to DC, allowing me to move back to camping, which is the only way I’ll ever be able to afford this whole thing.  Hotel nights get expensive, ya know.

What have I been doing in the meantime?  Hiking the Rockies solo, in the heart of grizzly bear country.  Traversing the back-roads.  Eating at small diners in the midwest.  Reconnecting with cousins I haven’t seen in decades.  Watching the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain.  Meeting readers like Homer-Dog, Miss McCracken, and AbsurdBeats.  Hiking the streets of New York, a city of concrete canyons I always thought I would hate, and finding that I wanted to stay longer and explore.

And, yes, I’ve been writing, too.  Partial posts and notes mainly, on the laptop, small notebooks, even scraps of paper.  Hopefully I’ll sit down at some point and start writing it all up.  Hopefully I’ll be able to do so without getting sick again.

But for now, I’m just gonna go sit in the whirlpool, watch the snow fall outside, and sniffle.

Tonight is my first night since leaving Portland and, although I’ve been doing a lot since Lava Beds, I’ve written very little.  I’m starting to wonder if that might not end up being a theme of the trip: I’ll end up doing so much that I won’t end up writing or posting all that much.  How do travel writers actually do it?

I think there’s two answers to that question, actually: 1) they stay up late and get it done and 2) they have hotel rooms, and so don’t have to spend a couple hours setting up camp and making dinner.  This may explain why travel articles are about cruises and hotels and more expensive stuff than living on the road out of a tent: there’s just more time when home for the night is already built and dinner is cooked by someone else.

I’m just ‘sayin.

I left Lava Beds and my caving adventure behind and drove up Highway 97 to Bend, the first highway I think I’ve ever been on that actually manages to be less scenic than the interstate: surrounded by logged forest on both sides, all the trees were of equal height, and nothing could be seen over them.  Better than driving through the city, to be sure, but after a while I yearned to see something else, be it a view of the Cascades to the west or the high desert to the east…

I camped near Bend, managing to find a Forest Service Campground after becoming both lost and frustrated in the city, caught up in a nightmare of traffic circles and road construction.  I’ve heard good things about Bend, and its attraction to outdoorsy-types, but it kind of reminded me of being like Lone Pine in the Eastern Sierras, only on a much larger scale.  Maybe I just didn’t give the town enough time and a fair shake, I don’t know.

Bend was merely a stop-over to the first highlight of the trip so far: getting to spend a few days in Portland and exploring around with long-time online friend SkyBlueStateOfMind (whom I shall forever refer to as “K”).

Before going into the fun things we did, I just have to point out that she is an absolutely awesome woman: smart, funny, and with a healthy sense of adventure.  Added bonus: she’s a lot better at making decisions on where to eat with I am.

She’s awful darn cute, too. 

After spending most of the first day at the hotel (online bills have to paid, after all) we met up in the evening, touring the Japanese Garden and walking around Washington Park, then heading to the Deschutes Brewery for some good beer and amazing fish & chips before a final, quick stop at Powell’s Books.  The weather was great, even though I’m told that “summer” only arrived in the PNW a couple of weeks ago.

Good beer, books, fine food, and good summer weather?  It’s amazing I didn’t stop and buy a house right then.

The next day we decided to hit the trail, heading up to Mt. Hood and hiking the Elk Meadow Loop Trail.  This was one of those perfect summer trails: walking through dense woods, open pockets with wildflowers, crossing frigid creeks, before finally arriving in a wide open meadow with views of snow-mantled Mt. Hood overhead.  After the hike, K kindly indulged me with a visit to the Timberline Lodge (I have something of a soft spot for the old railroad-era hotels in parks of the west, amongst my many interests), before capping off the evening with BBQ pizza and beer at the Ice Axe Grill in Government Camp.

For the last day, we elected to go a little more laid-back, heading up the Columbia River Gorge.  I was pretty happy about this, given that my course from here is taking me northward, rather than east, and I’ve always wanted to see the gorge.

Answering the clarion call of the tourist, we stopped at Multnomah Falls.  It’s undeniably a tourist stop, with a restaurant, a big gift shop, and a parking lot full of cars.  Still, the beauty of the falls is pretty undeniable.  In an effort to get away from the crowds, we headed up the steep, switchbacky 1-mile trail to the top, where a small platform overlooks the brink of the falls.  It was a little more of a workout than K and I expected, but felt good nonetheless.

K and I lunched in Hood River, then drove back into the city to see “Cowboys and Aliens” (enjoyable fun).  And while that may seem like the briefest description of a day ever written, what it doesn’t cover is the wonderful conversations we had throughout the day.

Last night we said our good-byes when she dropped me off at the hotel.  I’m glad that I finally got the opportunity to meet and spend time with K; it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve met with a reader and it’s always a mystery whether or not the friendship online will carry over in real life.  In this case it most certainly did, and hopefully some smart Portland boy will wise up and sweep her off her feet soon.

As for today, it’s mostly involved driving, finding a camping spot, and making a quick hike.  But I think I’ll save that for future writing…

Portland

Visited: August 10-13, 2011

It’s damned hard to be a travel blogger when most of the places you’re traveling to have no internet, or cell, or even electrical service.

That, and the fact that the “Run, Lola, Run” soundtrack can make every curve in the highway seem like you’re on an exciting movie-style car chase.

Right now, I’m sitting in a motel room in Bozeman, Montana.  The room is much more than I should be spending on a room, which is why my dinner tonight is a Caesar salad from the local Wal-Mart (a store I usually avoid out of principal but, dammit, my stove and lantern run on propane and they have it cheap).  Tomorrow I’ll be heading back out into the wilderness for another week, and yet again be utterly without services.

Not to say I haven’t been writing.  I’ve got a USB full of draft posts.  I’ve got camera cards full of over 1,000 pictures from the trip so far.  (Don’t be too impressed: I’ll often bracket a waterfall shot by 8-10 exposures just to get the right one; it’s not efficient, but that’s how good photography is.  If I’m ever a good photographer, I’ll let you know for sure if that’s true or just BS…)

So far, I’ve traveled many miles.  I’ve met old friends, and made a couple of new ones.  I’ve been trying to write, but my fear that winter will come on early has kept me on the move.  Well, except for the one day that I got stuck in a three hour traffic jam behind a rolled-over logging truck in remote British Columbia, but that’s a story for another day.

I suspect my postings will increase after the next week and a half or so, as I head eastward across the midwest.  My path is still a bit of a mystery, and I never really know where I’m going to be more than a week ahead of time, but as long as the weather holds I’ll be headed generally northeast.  I have to say, though, not having a plan is actually kind of nice.  And, of course, I’m still hoping for more offers of couches or backyards (for tent setups) or local tourguides/drinking partners.  Anyone out there from Toronto?  Just ‘askin.

Anyway, I had originally planned to do a big post today.  Instead, the day has been caught up with running errands, doing laundry, preparing a box of stuff to send back to The Parentage, etc.  I’d blog more tonight but, frankly, the hotel I’m staying at has a swimming pool and hot tubs, and I’ve just spent a big part of the last week in the cold and rain.  I’m only human, after all…

Keeping calm was the second thought that went through my head.  It followed on the heels of sheer panic, which is what happens when you’re deep underground in a lava tube, with only a flashlight in otherwise pitch blackness, and you realized that the path you’re trying to get out on is not the path you came in on.

I’d read about it before, sure, but nothing matches the feeling of being in that moment and trying to quash the natural instinct to turn 180 and backtrack as fast as possible without thinking.

I’d come to Lava Beds National Monument, my first detour from the otherwise relentless plainness of the interstate.  Located in the northwest corner of California, it feels a world away from the rest of the state.  To some degree, in fact, it is: Lava Beds and the high desert that surround it are more a part of the Great Basin than the landforms of the state proper.

I arrived in mid-afternoon, setting up camp in the mostly empty campground.  The air was clear, the vistas wide, and the campground had running water and nice restrooms.  I set up my tent and headed to the visitor center to find out where to go.

Campsite at Lava Beds, including a picnic table made partially of lava…

I started out in Mushpot Cave, the only lighted cave in the park, which provides a good introduction to the caves.  Lava Beds is made up of a series of lava tubs set down over the millennia.  They’re dark, the air temperature relatively mild even when the outside is roasting or covered in snow.  Mushpot is a fine teaser, with information signs and lighting (the only lighted cave in the park), but I knew I wanted to try for a “real” cave before dark.

Leaving my car in the visitor center parking lot (the cave loop road is closed at 5:00), I walked up to Golden Dome Cave.  I clambered down the ladder, one flashlight in hand and a backup in pocket, and a bicycle helmet on (the poor-man’s excuse for a caving helmet).  I first explored downstream, looking for but unable to see the “golden dome” ceiling (named for a colorful bacteria the grows in the water droplets on the ceiling), so I returned to the cave entrance and decided to explore the upstream portion of the tube before returning to camp.

The upstream section of the cave got lower and lower, and once I hit a section that would have required crawling on my stomach, I decided it was time to call it a day.  I turned around and made my mistake: I followed the opposite wall of the cave from the one I had come in on.  When I reached a section which would have required squeezing through on my stomach, I realized that I was lost.

Not a comfortable feeling when caving solo.

I took my deep breath, turned around, and slowly retraced my steps back to the point where, unbeknownst to me coming in, the cave had split into two tunnels.  I turned back down the other tunnel (making careful mental notes of my surroundings), and crawled downstream again.  A few minutes later, I clambered back up the ladder to the warm desert evening.

And breathed a sigh of relief.

Emerging into sunlight: evening clouds over the high desert

* * *

Sunrise at Lava Beds

I spent most of the next morning exploring some of the other lava tubes, looking into Valentine, Sunshine and Skull Cave.  Each was different and unique: Valentine, originating from a different lava flow than others in the park, having smooth walls and a distinctive “subway” feel; Sunshine with its roof-falls, allowing vegetation to grow down into the cave from the surface; and Skull Cave, where cold air descends and becomes trapped, creating a permanent ice floor at the bottom of the cave.

Looking at the entrance of Valentine Cave: sunlight and a bit of light-painting on the cave walls

In the belly of the beast: inside Valentine Cave

Lava Beds is one of the largest groupings of Lava Caves in North America.  I tended to stick to only the “easy” or “moderate” caves, eschewing the idea of becoming hopelessly lost or stuck in one of the “advanced” caves.  Not to worry, though: for the cave neophyte, there are caves so large (such as Skull) that claustrophobia is a near-impossibility.  Available for sale in the gift shop is a booklet containing descriptions and maps of most of the caves in the park, another re-assurance that you might like when adventuring underground.

I didn’t have a copy in hand when I realized I had taken the wrong cave tunnel that late Monday evening, but the copy I picked up seems the perfect souvenir from the trip!

I feel like I should be typing something deep and profound.  Like all those speeches they used to give before people began on long expeditions.

Truth is, though, I’m just flat-out exhausted.

The last couple of weeks have been more tiring than I would have thought possible.  First there was all the packing, last minute packing, putting it all in the truck, etc.  Then there was the long process of going through stuff and throwing out or donating a lot of it.

When you have to pare down your belongings to fit into a 75 foot storage space, it forces you to cleanse your life of a whole lot of stuff.  This is a good thing, I suppose, as I was holding on to way too much junk.  Still, it meant a week of non-stop decision-making about, literally, hundreds of items.  Not that any of the individual decisions were difficult, but taken en-masse?  Bloody exhausting.

After a few days of doing that, there was the shopping and preparing for the trip. Buying storage containers, selecting which clothing and cook gear to take, picking up a new sleeping bag, etc.  I even got a new tent, a big huge 10 x 10, and an air mattress.  My feeling is, if I get to stay anywhere for more than a few days, I might as well have decent sleeping accommodations.

Anyway, several days of that and I started to feel myself getting down.  Between all the decision making and the spending of money (something I’ve never been too good at), my mood was starting to sink.  So, finally, I called it: it was time to go.

Was there more that should have been done?  Sure.  More preparation?  Yep.  More selection of goods and equipment?  Yes, indeedy.

But I needed to leave.  It was time.

So, now I am heading north.  I’m at Lake Siskiyou, a good overnight spot to bed down for the night.

August 7, 2011. The day I decided to hit the road.

It’s also my 38^th birthday.

Which, although purely coincidental, is pretty damn poetic by any measure.

Tomorrow, I’ll be leaving the interstate.  It all feels so surreal.

Or maybe *yawn* it’s just been a long day of driving.

This may have been a mistake, and not just because I really should be at home packing.  No, the last few days have been difficult; as I plan to depart, I’m reminded of that which I’m leaving behind.  This wonderful canyon, for example, which is absolutely perfect today.  There are other places, too: other hikes, favorite restaurants, my local library.  My home which, though sometimes hot in the summer and cold in the winter, has had the most distinct “home” feeling of any place I’ve lived since leaving for college 20 years ago.

Most difficult of all, though, is leaving my friends.  I was reminded the other day of when I first started this blog, on the heels of a breakup during which I lost most of my friends, maybe all, because they were mostly her friends.

Now, here I am a few years later, leaving behind the best, most awesome group of friends I’ve ever had.  Hard to leave that behind, hard because I don’t know if I’l be back or end up some place else.  It’s the one area where I truly wonder if I’m making a mistake; good friends are as difficult to come by as falling in love, I think.

Even just writing about it is difficult.  They all spoke of it not being “good bye” as much as “see you later.”  It’s an old cliché, I know.

But right now I really hope it’s true.

* * *

It’s hard not to wonder right now if I’ve gone too far.

As I’ve been typing up these journal entries from the last year, I keep wondering if it’s all too much.  Why didn’t I just find another job?  Why didn’t I just move?  Why didn’t I work more at dating, or taking more vacations, or doing more as the years ticked by?

Is this all that I know how to do, this “all or nothing” thing?

I know that I’ve got to become better with change.  The world fairly demands it nowadays.  Whereas one once stayed with a company for life, now when people learn that I was at my job for over 10 years, they invariably say that I was “there too long.”

But I had a father who stayed at his job for over 30 years.  It’s hard for this apple to learn the behavior of trees it didn’t fall from.

* * *

20 years.

Last Saturday was my high school’s 20^th reunion.  I looked up the FB page.

I didn’t go.  Obviously, I’m a little busy with other stuff at the moment, but even if that weren’t the case, I probably wouldn’t have gone anyway.  I don’t have any lasting friendships from back then, nor stellar memories that I cling to.

Well, maybe.  There probably are, but I don’t want to contemplate them right now.

I don’t find that I’m particularly afraid of getting older.  I’m not having long sighs of regret about the fact that my high school graduation was 20 years ago.

What is difficult is looking at the pictures.  Seeing how those people grew up, fell in love, got married, bought houses, had kids.  The same thing my parents did.  The same thing most people do, and many of my classmates had satisfied their wanderlust back then, in high school or college, whereas I’m just tackling it now.

I don’t know that its jealousy.  Maybe it’s just a feeling of wanting to be “normal.”  I can see the appeal of having a house in the suburbs and someone to come home to.  It’s how I grew up.  Whatever my feelings about the job were, there was a nice security in having to go to work every day, having a regular paycheck.  I’ll even admit to having the perverse pleasure of paying bills, and being able to pay them.  It was normal.

On the flip side, as I paged through their profiles, it was hard not to notice how many hadn’t moved far away from Sacramento, especially those that I’d always assumed would.  But maybe that’s not so strange: even if I don’t come back to L.A., I’ll probably end up on the west coast.

It’s home.

But will I ever have the trappings of a “normal” life?  I don’t know.  Do I even really want them?  I don’t know.

It seems that’s something I should ponder on the road.

* * *

“None of it feels real, yet,” I told my friend over beers the other night.  “I’m going through the motions, packing, preparing to move, all that, but it still just feels like I’m on a couple weeks vacation from work.”

I wonder when reality will settle in.

I wonder when I’ll know if I’ve made the right choice or not.

I wonder if I’ll ever get over my fear of the unknown.

I wonder how I will feel, making this journey alone.

I wonder what my future holds.

And I wonder if I will ever be back here, at the Secret Spot, or find another place where I feel so at peace.

* * *

I’m sitting on a rock, writing all this, contemplating the journey that I’m about to begin.  The one I’m forcing, or rather challenging, myself to take.

But sitting here in the Secret Spot, I’ve had a moment of clarity.  I know now why I’ve been fearing taking the journey alone, because that reason is the same thing I’ve always felt about this place.

This place has deep meaning to me, as I’ve written about before.  And although I don’t know what will happen on this trip, no doubt it will take on the some meaning as well.

I’ve always wanted to share the Secret Spot with someone who could understand what it means to me, and how special it is.  I wish I could do the same with the trip.

I’m sometimes haunted by Chris McCandless thought that “happiness only real when shared.”  And while I’m not currently planning to solo off into the Alaskan wilderness, it’s still a thought on my mind…

* * *

I just did something I’ve never done before.

In all the times I’ve come to this place, all the time I’ve spent here, laying out on rocks, reading, writing, whatever, I’ve never done much more than dip my feet into the water.

Until today.

Today I waked into the waters of this place.  Held my nose closed, dipped my head into the waters of my favorite pool.

Call it a baptism or whatever you want, but I came out feeling different.  I stood straight in the sun, felt the water drying on me, the cool breeze evaporating the dampness away.  Everything feels sharp and clear.  My problems seem far away.

I’m writing this to remind myself not to forget this moment.  To take it, and this place, with me.

I hope my travels take me far.

I hope to return safe.

I hope to return anew.

I hope someday to find that person.  The one who I can bring here.  The one who I can tell my stories of this place, of broken legs and fires and renewal.  The one who will close their eyes and listen to the stream, the birds, the wind in the trees.  The one who will dip themselves in the water with me and feel that feeling.  The one who will look back at me and understand why this place is so special.

I hope that she exists.

I hope that I can find her.

I hope that what I’m about to do prepares me for what lies ahead.

I hope I can find some way to retain this feeling I have right now, right at this moment.

Because I am smiling.

* * *

I’m back at the car now, and finding it difficult to leave.

Before hiking back, I hiked up a ridge and looked down on the canyon.  The sun was going down, the shadows across the canyon walls deepening.

Perhaps you, my reader, will think this un-manly, but I choked up.  I thanked this place.  Maybe it’s unusual to thank a place, but today it felt appropriate.

I thanked it for all that it has taught me.  For being the place I broke my leg hiking solo, and teaching me who I am.

I thanked this canyon for simply being.  In my darkest days, I found solace here.  At the lowest and loneliest points in my life, I could come here and not feel alone.  I have been here on hot summer days, and cold rainy winter ones.  I have seen it burn, which broke my heart, and been reborn, different and the same.

In a strange way, I suppose its my turn to have the radical change, and see what growth does or doesn’t happen on the other side.

Finally, I swore that somehow, some way, I would be back.  And like any promise made to a friend who’s always been there for you, I hope to keep it.

Good bye, Secret Spot.  Until we meet again.

I’m good at that.  Forever looking back, pondering the choices I made, wondering less about the mistakes and more about the ones I made out of pure stubbornness.

[Surely I can’t be the only one who does that.  Can I?]

* * *

I should feel more excited about life at the moment, but that feeling is being drowned out by stress and, frankly fear.  This, I have been recently assured, is perfectly normal.

In a mere 24 hours, I spoke both to my financial advisor and to my parents.  The advisor is probably the best cheerleader I have.  It’s strange, having the person who is planning your retirement and fiscal future encouraging me to quit my job and spend all kinds of money to travel.  Downright odd, it is.

More surprising is my parents, who I told all about what has been happening these past several months.  They’re all for it, offering to help me move, plan, whatever.  This also is odd.  For most of my life, Dad has worried about money, Mom about my traveling alone.  Yet, here they are, backing me.  Hell, in terms of quitting, their response was “it’s about damn time.”

* * *

Ah, quitting.  With luck, I won’t have to.

As much as I’ve dreamed over the years of quitting (or even throwing some massive, dramatic event to quit), the fact is that I’m better off being let go.  Being “downsized” is okay, and getting laid off looks better for unemployment.

Which means that the next stressful step is to go out for coffee with my boss.

And ask her to fire me, essentially.

How strange my life has become.

[If only it were that easy.  Getting fired is harder than you might think.]

* * *

It may backfire, of course.  I may ask to be let go on June 30, and they may fire me that day.  They hate to have people quit, but love to fire them.  Apparently, the work “hypocrisy” is not in their vocabulary.

If she’s smart, by boss won’t do that.  If she’s smart, she’ll spend a couple of weeks learning everything she can from me and my over 10 years there.  But the company has shown in the past that they’re so eager to prove they don’t “need” anyone that they may push me out and make her figure it out on her own.

It would be stupid, but I’ve used the word “incompetence” before, and with good reason.

* * *

One thing still troubles me, though: traveling alone.

[Geez, me: recurring theme, much?]

I’m trying to accept it.  Eventually, I’ll have no choice.  And maybe it’ll be okay.  Maybe I’ll meet people along the way.  Maybe I’ll make new friends, acquaintances, meet other bloggers, expand my social circle in new and unexpected ways.

Maybe.

Or its just as likely that I’ll stay in my tent or hotel room, shy away from others like I always have.

I can change locations, but can I change me?

One of the baristas just mentioned that he’s going to Italy to study car design/industrial design.  I wish I had done this when I was younger, more eager to stay in hostels, go out drinking all night.  The truth is, I moved out too soon, too young, and stuck too stubbornly to my dream of working in film.

There I go, looking at the past again.

I need to stop.

I wish I knew how.

* * *

So much to buy, so much to do.

A tonneau cover for the truck.  A small laptop.  A wide lens for the SLR I just purchased.  I’ve overwhelmed and stressed and, despite the positive encouragement and offers of help I’m receiving, nevertheless feel alone.  I know this is the worst part, the transition.  And change, even good change (such as, *ahem*, leaving a shit job) is stressful.  It comes with the territory.

Then again, everything, everything, in the past few months, and in this journal, has been leading to this moment.  And I have to keep reminding myself that at some point in the near future I won’t be getting up, cursing traffic on the 405, spending 8 hours a day at a job I hate.

Maybe I should make a dozen copies of that and post it everywhere I look.  I’ve never been good with change or the unknown.

Can I change myself in that aspect as well?

[Ever wish that you could change an aspect of your personality just by flipping a switch?]