The Open End of the Road
Open road. The very definition of a road less traveled; of a choice made and what comes with it. Will it be a vast stretch of full bore straight ahead or the treachery of tight curves and blind corners; the monotonous drone of a ribbon that never wavers from its heading or the unpredictability of dual apex and decreasing radius turns? The unknown becoming known is invigorating, liberating, and expansive; full of anticipation, the exciting and the unexpected. I can’t wait to see what’s around the next bend!
It’s been said the open road is life – all of it wide open for the taking. There’s the deep sigh of relief that comes to me on the road. A wave that surrounds and swallows me, one without fear or longing, only an anticipation that something special awaits. I cling to it, but eventually the euphoria wears off….
Sometimes followed by boredom, in those empty moments my mind begins to wander to other things. It’s inevitable, as our brains are always hell bent on filling those voids. They can’t remain in a state of suspension or contentment for long. Thoughts start to creep in, often from deep within the black hole of dark places, allowing my cerebral wanderings to conjure up ‘could be’s’ and ‘what if’s’, giving my mind an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole of fears and worries to plunder and toy with.
‘Stop!,’ I yell to myself. Coming to from this semi-conscious trance, I shake my head, slap myself around a bit and scold the other me out loud, as if there’s someone else witnessing all this and comprehending my charade, my inner battle. What happened to the simple high of the open road?
It’s been replaced, and from now on it will be a battle between flowing states of nirvana and treacherous descents into the deep terrors of the Id, and segues into all places between. Alice does live here, as much as I would prefer she shack up with someone else. After a time alone on this road, I become familiar again with Alice’s brain teases and a certain comfort with her presence overtakes me. I begin a conversation with Alice, and we confront a good many of my current dilemmas, even reaching a grudging peace that some things are meant to remain ambiguous and undefinable. I learn to live with that fact, even accepting specific acts and behaviors as uncontrollable, with responses that will need to be thoughtful and egoless.
I learn not to place blame, as I finally recognize blame cannot be placed. It is just a thing that is.
Some believe all things can be controlled or manifested into being simply by visualizing circumstances that make it possible. I believe it’s a quantum universe and, unfortunately, not all things can either be anticipated or controlled. Sometimes bad things just happen, and sometimes they seem to conspire against you in a perfect storm of misfortunes that cannot be overcome. Blame is not a rational course for justification. It may be what we all want to relieve ourselves, but it rarely captures the true course of events.
That’s one epiphany I learned recently on the open road. It’s been brewing for quite awhile and I’ve finally come to peace with it. And now that I have, I see ‘perfect storms’ happening to people on a regular basis; I was never the only one. It’s only life, just as it is on the open road.
