28
Jul
The end is not as important as the beginning
The end.
Well, the end is not as important as the beginning. I know that now.
So how did it end?
It honestly ended in an unremarkable blur. We drove and drove with sleep-bogged minds that had been churning since our New Orleans cots, 1313 miles previous. Scattered remnants of New Mexico’s nighttime sounds and smells attempted to reach my brain, but mostly all I could absorb was another black road slowly creeping toward the next sunrise.
My heart churned as we passed the sign welcoming us to back to Arizona - a place I’d built up a childish prejudice toward growing up feeling there was “never anything to do.” It was a sight that filled me both with relief and a feeling that this too was a strange place now that I’d seen the places I’d always dreamed were better than here.
A brief layover in Tucson turned the “we” into an “I,” and I numbly made the final stretch to Phoenix in the Viral Van very much alone.
Like I said, the end is not nearly as exciting as the beginning. But it did speak more of reality. Big plans crumbled into small ones. Ambitions brought down out of the clouds and into the real world. I saw a lot of roads, but I also passed a lot of roads. I barreled ahead toward a nameless goal I thought sure would bring answers but in reality only brought more questions.
Whatever the “it” was I was looking for, I didn’t find exactly. At least I don’t know all that I found right now.
Regardless how it ended, what I do still have is my belief in “the beginning.” A belief that anything is possible with an open mind, a full gas tank and the desire to see it all, to absorb it all, and to write it all down.
