Please, please, PLEASE get in touch with us and let us know if we're inspiring or annoying you, if you have questions or comments, or just to say hi! We may even stop in and see you at some point!

Monday, October 6, 2008

REPLAY: The Big Step Up

This was from March 30 of this year, one day after I watched "Into the Wild" and found my motivation to do what I'm doing now.

One can debate on how to live his or her life for so long before something happens. Sometimes they acknowledge that the path they have been walking is the right path, they embrace it, move forward, learn, and keep going. Sometimes things happen where one is forced to take a different path, to journey around unforseen obstacles to reach a destination unknown. Sometimes, we choose a third option, to change direction in the middle of the journey, unhappy with the course of our original choices and yearning for a route that will lead us towards a new life or lifestyle.

I sit here, this snowy morning on the last Sunday in March, sit here on the floor in my bathroom with the shower running beside me, and I listen to my music, and I ponder my future. I have a trendy studio apartment in the heart of a trendy city. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want to pay rent. I don’t want to be stuck in a life where I am tied down to things that aren’t going to inspire me in the future. I think it’s time for the big step up.

Ryan and I are talking about doing Longs Peak and the Grand Teton this summer. I’m going to be pushing myself harder than I ever thought possible. It’s time for the big step up.

The van is running well, and it has plenty of room for a bed and counter space. It’s time. It’s time to shed these chains of lonliness and laziness and ineptitude and take the big step, the one that pushes me to explore and push my body, my mind, and my spirit to new heights of reality. I need to learn. I need to seek. I need to explore. I need to stop trying to understand and just let go of what is tying me down here.

The lease runs out at the end of May. I have an idea of who will take care of miss Harry and give her the best life possible. I have places to shower, places to sleep, places to do laundry, but most importantly, I have places to go. I have places to explore, things to see that I have never seen before. I have a pre-destination of sorts to find what it is that being here in Denver has left me lacking.

I’m sure my best friends, the people that understand me most, understand this desire. I know people like my friend that moved here after moving around the country from places like Saint Louis and Oakland and travels to places like Jamaica, Florida, Hawaii, Mexico will understand. I know people like my friend who moved to a tiny town from Chicago and now is a certified guide in almost every discipline as well as a photographer, artist, and explorer will understand. I’m sure my friend that left the California city life for a life of climbing and exploring this human condition will understand.

The journey begins. The line is drawn here. The steps can only go forward do the destination unknown. It’s time to take the big step up.