Rear View

Wrote this the day before my 50th, last New Year’s Eve.

Today is the last day of my 40s.
Another decade of life gone by.
Makes me think about a lot of stuff in the past.
About things that have happened over the last 10 years.
The good and bad.

About joy, bliss, pain, suffering, and re-invention.
I remember at 19 when I left home.
From the family I grew up in.

The love and comfort of my parents and siblings.
With everything I owned stuffed in my Mercury Tracer.
Leaving a short-term girlfriend and everything I knew.
Never to return to live in that same place and in that same way ever again.
I remember being all alone and crying.
Crying because I already missed everyone.
Crying because I didn’t know if and how I’d make it in my new life.
But we manage.
I managed to do it.
I still do.

Getting on the 2-lane headed out of Jacksonville, Illinois.

Then on more 2 lanes.
And, the interstate.
With the only world I’d really ever known getting smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror.

Today, I find myself on the outskirts of the small town of another season of life.

Filling up at the Huck’s on the edge of my heart and mind.

A final, familiar stop.
Before heading into the next adventure.

The 50s seem promising to me.

A time when I still have the energy to do the long list of things I’ve wanted to for so long.
To become the potential person I know I am.
To keep learning and growing.
To put off emotional baggage and trade it for luggage to see and experience the broader world.

To grow a bigger, softer, kinder, truer heart and expanded mind.

To be a more authentic self.

To live and love better.

40s, thank you for all you’ve given me.

The brightest of days.
And even the darkest moments of my nights.

Oh.
The pump just clicked.

My tank is full.
Time to pull out of this station.

And, get on the road out of this town.