Leave the road, take the trails.
Leave the road, take the trails. - Pathagoras
As I hiked the Canyon Loop trail at Catalina State Park in Tucson, the feeling of calm excitement mixed with wanderlust and a dose of inner happiness came over me. The feeling was becoming my new normal. I wondered, though, how do I keep this feeling when I dive back into the working world? While I don't know the answer yet, I do know that I will find it. Maybe the better question is, how did I lose it? Another question to be answered at a later date. For now my focus is on experience. As in, I want to have as many new experiences as possible.
Over the past few years, I had become a very predictable, habitual creature. Ordering the same dish at my favorite three restaurants. Doing the same ten exercises three times a week at the gym. Driving the same route to work everyday. Making pasta for dinner night after night along with a Starbucks vanilla latte and bacon gruyere egg bites as a daily breakfast. I didn’t know how to break the cycle or even that I wanted to break the cycle. It was working for me on a professional level as I was diving into fun media projects like social and digital marketing and finding new ways to reach customers during the pandemic. But on a personal level, I was bored beyond bored.
Last July was my first break in the monotony. I decided, along with everyone else in the country, to get myself a bicycle. I did my research and despite ninety percent of the Milwaukee bike shops favoring Trek, I wanted a Specialized mountain bike. At the time I had no idea that biking had become a huge trend in the nation. I visited the one bike shop in Milwaukee that carried Specialized and found they were sold out of just about every style. All of the bikes that I wanted were on back order for months. Disappointedly, I was going to settle for a blue Trek road bike when this violet/pinkish bike caught my eye. The sales kid told me it was an electronic hybrid bike from Specialized and was pretty expensive compared to what I was looking at for my every day bike. I immediately thought, get the Trek. It is practical. It is a good bike. But the eBike was so intriguing. It was calling to me. I hemmed and hawed and looked from bike to bike like a tennis fan watching a competitive match. My spidey sense told me "Get the eBike. It is YOUR bike. Just do it." So I did.
I started to ride my new bike wherever I could. To the gym, along trails, to the grocery store and around the neighborhood. I loved my bike and started to realize that life outside of work could be fun and rewarding. It was the perfect time to try new things, so I decided to test out dating again. I had an easy out with the pandemic in full swing by blaming any social awkwardness and anxiety on social distancing. I met a ton of people through dating apps. Most were scammers. Some were fake profiles. Many were married men pretending to be single but never wanting to actually meet in person. A handful were real people.
I video chatted with a few guys and even went on a smattering of actual, face to face, dates. They all started with my anxiety creeping up and my stomach bile rising into my esophagus. I survived each one, without actually vomiting, a tiny bit more relaxed, confident and inspired. I gave them all geographical nicknames so that my close friends could keep track. Then I met Shorewood, as I called him. I fell for him after our first date, which still stands as the best first date I have ever had. We had a blast together over the first few months. Dancing in the kitchen as we made pizza from scratch. Singing duets to various songs - settling on Sonny & Cher’s “Baby Don’t Go” and Johnny Cash and June Carter’s "Jackson" as our go-to songs. Riding our bikes along trails and to breakfast spots. Ordering our favorite dishes and sharing plates. Listening to Ueke call the baseball game on sunny Sunday afternoons on his back patio. Telling each other how lucky we were for finding one another. As summer started to come to an end, so did our relationship.
At the end of January, I met a man that allowed me to be vulnerable and open. He had no idea that he was creating a safe space for me to explore my deepest and most sacred self or that I was even learning to be in a caring relationship where two people shared experiences instead of just solely focusing on my partner and hiding my true self. He made me feel wanted, secure, and special. We shared. We laughed. A lot. We texted into the wee hours of the night. We had inside jokes and felt an immediate connection that we would, at the very least, be forever friends. I helped him find his way again after months of feeling down and depressed and he helped me look at life in new and exciting ways. For the first time in my relationship life, I experienced a friendship AND a romance. With the same person. It was incredible. But then his divorce and my new freedom interfered with our ability to share. Despite understanding that his focus had to be on his kids and mine on exploring my life, I was crushed.
If I had only one word to describe myself, I would choose tenacity. In my professional life, I have the tenacity to successfully complete projects despite the most challenging of obstacles. I am the person you call if you want a project completed on time, within a certain budget, and accomplished beyond expectations. In my personal life I have the tenacity to stay the course even with set backs, rejection and thrown wrenches. And so when I was knocked down, bamboozled by a friend, washed over by a new love and observed the three year anniversary of my dad’s death day, all within a few days of each other, I dug deep in my soul and thought, it is time to travel, reinvent myself, leave the road and take the trail.
Since that fateful day in late March, my focus has been on taking each day as it comes and taking the new path before me. I am interacting with people in new ways, trekking to new places and living in the moment. I have traveled to and through nine different states, camping, glamping and staying at unique airBnBs along the way. New friendships have developed and I strike up conversations with strangers while leaving my social anxieties under a rock. Exploring restaurants and bars with my siblings is happening weekly. An occurrence that rarely happened, if at all, in the past. I still don’t drink alcohol, but I am talking to people and making new friends. And ordering a different dish with every meal. My writing skills have blossomed as I share my shielded feelings through this blog. My sister and I have lived under the same roof for weeks without fighting. Not a small feat by any means. Skinny dipping has become the new norm. The warm pool water feels amazing against my skin. Bugs and spiders are less scary but I am still very on edge about the tarantulas that live in the desert floor of Tucson. And the snakes. Still not a fan of snakes. I am back on Bumble and opening up with my dates, slowly showing my true self in vulnerable ways. I am grateful that I have the courage to continue to move forward and take the long and winding road that leads me to the door. (Thanks Paul!)
