road trip and life.

I’ve been distant, yeah I know.  This blog has become something I use to do. Something I use to love.  Something that use to define me.  Now it just something saved on my desktop.  

For the past month I have been on a cross-country road trip. 

I got fed up.

I quit my job.

I flew to Iowa.

Picked up my car and left.

I had no timeline

I had no idea what I was doing.

No idea where I was going.

I just had a tent and a credit card.

I was good.

I had a lot of breaking points on this trip.  I like telling people about these breaking points more then I like telling them about the awesome national parks I stayed at.  These points helped me define who I am.

I learned more about myself in the month I was gone then in the 26 years I have been alive. 

When I found myself at Yellowstone where it was raining and I woke up with ice on my tent, I realized I give up too easily.

K-starting a fire isn’t that hard and if you are going to let a little rain stop you what are you going to do in the real world when it appears life is out to get you?

In Oregon when I got lost on one of those curvy dark roads and my GPS couldn’t connect to a satellite and my phone had no service, I freaked out.  Tears streaming out of my eyes and there was no place to stop or turn around.

Eventually I made it back to a main road and promptly got a hotel room and a bottle of wine. 

The next night I had one of the best camping experience every. 

From this low point came an amazing memory.

crazy beautiful sunset on the coast or Oregon... and hour later I was lost. 

In Capitol Reef national park while I was watching the sunset on a side of a cliff by myself and missing the real world for a little bit I figured out dating.

My past failed relationships were never a result of me not being right or the guy not being right… we just weren’t right for each other. 

At one point and one moment on a cliff I got over every guy I have ever dated. 

I decided to stop searching.

To stop stressing out about something that I know will eventually just happen.

The cliff 

At the National Bridges National Monument while looking at the stars I realized how little we are and as I was wishing that I wasn’t viewing them by myself I was content with being able to see the stars with out the sounds or the lights of the city distracting me. 

You realize when looking at the stars in Utah that there are things in your life and things in this world that are bigger then your personal problems.

Being unemployed right now, living with out health insurance, and having to pause paying off my loans for a small period of time isn’t going to cause the end of the world… it shouldn’t even cause me additional stress.

stock image from the NPS website... my camera would not be able to take this photo

via

In forty years I won’t remember being unemployed, but I’ll always remember the stars in Utah.

-K