Life is Hard

With all the dreams I could conjure and the lack of energy to make them tangible, I’ve digressed from what I had written a few years back.  I was consumed by the notion of a quagmire of my own making.  Not that I haven’t gone out outside and practiced what was written years back, but I just fell short of the purpose of my writing.

I was reminded recently how once I had that dream to live accordingly to tell stories.  To take the time to be alone, with memories and the potential to serialize my imagination.  I’ve faltered from such notions.  The discipline of dedication to the written word, lost in my search for adventure, distractions and stresses of occupation, and sheer lack of motivation.  Yes, I daresay and admit, the constant theme and ultimate motivator to many a written word, inaction versus action.

I did have some great adventures to write about the last few years:  Making a valiant effort to go rim to rim in the Grand Canyon for a few days, seeing Mt. Rainier up close, my usual quick get away adventures to Joshua Tree, and going up and failing on my first winter ascent of a peak.  Pretty cool stuff.  I’m always trying to do something, at some point.  Highlights of my existence indeed, but yet, my pen failed to be anything worth your time.

Then there’s everything else:  Taking care of my nearest and dearest, maintaining a career that provides for such a lifestyle of adventure that there is little time left for and money, after paying your mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc., bloody, etc., what good are dreams if you don’t act on them.  Excuses.

I am writing this down as an admission of guilt, of failure.  I never got to piecing together that film about my bike ride down the coast.  All the adventures I never wrote about.  All those photos I was not mindful enough to take.  Then of course, there are all those adventures I did not venture forward with.  Yeah, those.

For some reason the failures are the highlight of this writing.  December 2016.  Turning around at 10,500′ on Mt. Humphreys after only 3 hours of sleep and being at sea level only 15 hours beforehand was pretty crummy.  I haven’t let that adventure end just yet.  Unless Mt. Humphreys blows it’s top and California sinks in the ocean and I drown with it, I will definitely be back.  In 2015 some friends and I endeavored to do the rim to rim hike in the Grand Canyon.  Weather kept us from going up to the north rim.  For that too, I am esteemed to one day return.  Memorial Day 2014, my car broke down outside of Yosemite National Park just as I was trying to enter the first time after two other failed trips.  One stopped by fires, and the other by a government shutdown.  Just last year I reserved a site in Tuolumne to only not go because I had a US citizenship ceremony to attend.  Yosemite will always be in my heart and soul, but for reasons beyond my own control, I have not been able to set foot there in the last five years.  Maybe 2018 will be different.  I can’t fail five times, can I?

Then there’s getting fat.  Yup, every year I manage to balloon up to some ridiculous weight, and have to work hard to get to something manageable.  That on-going cycle.  It’s easy to be lazy.  I do it enough.  Long days at work, no time to eat right.  Blah, excuse, blah.  That’s all I’m going to say about that.

So I failed in a few things, I will probably fail some more.  When I started this blog, I put myself out there true to the fact that I am not one of those hardcore disciplined adventure athletes that lives off of very little.

What is more arduous than any mountain adventure or long endurance bicycle tour is trying to maintain sanity surrounded by corporate culture as a means to just stay afloat.  Last year I turned 40.   It’s really hitting me hard that I have spent nearly half my life working for the same company.  I endure.  I obviously don’t hate my job, or the company I have given some long term loyalty to.

Asides from that place, I’ve also kept some proper loyalty to some great friends  For the last few years, I’ve been a part of  their trips.  I am one to heed that call, “Hey Ro, in three months let’s go here.”  Sure why not?  Let’s train, send me the links on the web so I can add my own research.  Let ‘s do it!  The last “my trip” that I went on was the car breakdown in Lee Vining.  It really is easy to jump on the bandwagon on someone else’s trip.  Contribute some gas money, knowledge, gear and be on your way.  Awesome.  Maybe I’ve gotten complacent on jumping on those trips?  Just go with the group.  The tribe mentality.  I guess, I have missed being alone.  Next trip: My own backyard.  (details coming soon.)

So yes, I’m still here, just trying to do something, weekends at a time, or quick vacations at a time.  You’ll hear again from me soon.  If not, just know, I’m trying, still.