Up to this point, we’ve explored landing at Pat’s house, my childhood stuff, casino days, and my current perspective. Now, let’s revisit the journey…
Road trip, Day 4. Stopped at a Wyoming Overlook. Destination: Unknown
As though whisked by a painter’s lightest touch, clouds swirl upon a dramatic sapphire backdrop. Buckskin-hued hills and dark sage-colored ponderosa pines pigment the barren landscape. In the distance, a solo teepee stands taut. With my hand on the slick, metallic railing, a semi-truck’s low grumble beckons from behind, jostling me free from the land’s hold. I face down the 10-ton machine, its larger-than-life frame sucking up and spitting out the August sauna air as I stand alone, overcome by it, just as it whooshes by.
Something’s changed. With the door propped open in my car, I swipe through my contact list, swishing names in my mind like fine wine. There’s this light panic at the thought, “What’s wrong?” as names run together and feel as disposable as gunk down a sink.
Later, my car treks up a stretch of I-80. Setting my chin on the wheel, I resign myself to no one to call and hours of flat, repetitive landscape. My pill’s effects have worn off. Glancing at the ones remaining, I feel the urge to take another, but the desire to moderate is stronger.
My chest flusters at the hill’s crescendo as my eyes cover the distance. Like a captain on a watch, I survey each peak and valley. When I spot diamond-like sparkles rhythmically dancing, I’m in disbelief. I’ve struck gold! My savior is a lake.
Even with time’s distant arm, some memories are charged as if they happened yesterday. I often counsel clients “wanting to go deep” and “into their darker memories” that it’s not by jumping and drowning in them we heal. Progress is an intentional approach, one with a tether and a plan.
Rolling down the window, fresh air fills the air-conditioned space. I pause at a stop sign at the freeway’s exit end. A new feeling; possibility, hope even? Glancing in my rearview and seeing no cars pressuring me onward, I queue up the song “Free” by the Zac Brown Band. There’s a violin’s long, haunting draw, and then the pluck of the guitar and these lyrics,
“So we live out in our old van
Travel all across this land
Me and you
We’ll end up hand in hand
Somewhere down on the sand
Me and you
Just as free
Free as we’ll ever be.”
Going On 40 
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