TWO FLATS AND A SPARE

STANDING ON A CORNER…

I love road-trips!  There’s something about hitting the open road and driving through areas you don’t get to see every day, about the windshield-therapy that comes with expanding the perspective, about breaking free from the familiar and allowing the mind to perhaps get out of some well-established ruts.   

I’ve always been a joy-in-the-journey kind of guy.  The destination tends to be somewhat anti-climactic, but the journey is typically a rewarding process…so much so that I continue to yearn for those opportunities.    

Think about it for a moment…have you ever stood on a corner in Winslow, AZ?  Who gets on the internet looking for things to do in Winslow?  Yet, if you’re a destination kind of person, you may stop for gas at either of the exits off I-40 on the east or west end of town, but you don’t consider taking the time to make a detour to a downtown intersection where you’ll find a red flatbed Ford and the Eagles song “Take It Easy” playing over a loudspeaker.    

The journey can bring with it a level of adventure and spontaneity; it can be the seasoning that makes the flavors in a meal completely unique.  Those unexpected and unscripted experiences along the way can be the source of memories a person carries with them through life…and then 20+ years later, those memories become the inspiration of a blog post. 

But all memories are not created equal…

THE DARK SIDE

As fond as I can be sitting here reminiscing over a detour in Winslow, AZ, I realize that the journey can have a dark side to it.   There are times along the journey where the things that come along unexpectedly are not always accompanied by a smile and a sense of joy.  There are times along the journey when we can begin to wonder if we’ve lost our way…or we become fatigued about the process and begin to entertain discouraging questions of whether we’ll ever get to the destination.   “Are we there yet?” is no longer the question coming from the occupants in the backseat…but it’s now coming from the person holding the steering wheel.

(On I-10 between Deming and Lordsburg, NM)

A NIGHTMARE SITUATION WEST OF DEMING

It was Thanksgiving week (sometime in the early 2000’s) and my wife, young daughter, and I were heading to grandma’s house in Tucson, AZ.  It was about a 14-hour drive from the northern Colorado area, and we had recently turned west onto I-10 heading out of Deming, NM.  Anyone who’s traveled this section of road knows there is not much at all out there but flatland filled with scrubbrush and small mountains randomly jetting up as you look in various directions. 

The next town ahead of us was Lordsburg, NM, a town situated about 20 miles east of the New Mexico-Arizona border.  It’s about 60 miles of “nothing” between Deming and Lordsburg, although there are probable about 50 people (give or take 5) that would beg to differ. 

It’s mid-afternoon and we’re cruising along…until we’re not.  We hit something laying on the highway along the driver’s side of the car, and the next thing we know, both tires on the driver’s side are flat.  Now…for most of us, a flat tire is not a problem but only a minor inconvenience.   However, when you add a second flat tire, that’s when a person can run into a situation.  Now remember, this was the early 2000’s so cellphones were a relatively new thing, and no one had heard of 5G service…so, “Can you hear me now?” was a legitimate question. 

Because our cellphones had no service out there in scrub-world, we sat along that highway somewhere in between Deming and Lordsburg for what felt like several hours, waiting…hoping… for someone to come along and help us.  I later learned that what I thought was a bunch of rude truckers honking as they flew by us, was a message being communicated to us that help had been radioed back to Deming and someone was coming our way.    

A tow truck finally showed up and took us to a tire center about 25 miles back in Deming, and after many hours…we were finally on our way.   The joy in the journey was long gone when we started the car at some point just before 6:00pm and all we wanted was to get to Grandma’s house and have this trip be over with. 

AN OLD FAMILIAR FEELING

As I journaled this morning, I was thinking about two “journeys” I am going through right now.  I then wrote the words that are the title to this post. I wrote that I feel like I have two flats and one spare.

I’m in the process of moving out of obesity…I hate that word, but I refuse to candy-coat my circumstances.  I used to be 345lbs and at 6’6”, I hid my weight to some degree; but no getting around it, I was grossly obese.  Today, I am 292lbs, but according to a BMI calculator, I need to hit 259lbs to move from obese to overweight.

Bottom line…I’m somewhere near Deming, NM…and there are days I feel like I have two flat tires and those damn truckers keep honking as they fly by.  I’m tired; sometimes feel stuck…and I wonder if I’ll ever get to my destination. 

The other “journey” is about writing.  Yesterday I sat down and tried to organize my thoughts; tried to follow the trail toward the summit when it comes to writing a book.  I felt overwhelmed…I felt little direction…I wondered if I was lost somewhere in the wilderness.  If I’m going to use the Deming metaphor here, I wasn’t sitting along the highway, I was surrounded by scrubbrush in all directions with no sight of a road anywhere near.    

Dramatic?  Yeah…maybe a bit.  These are all first-world problems.  Life is good, I have a job, the bills are paid, I feel better physically than I have in decades…but in those moments, there’s nothing pleasant about the experience. 

THE IN-BETWEEN

As I journaled, I found myself entertaining thoughts about whether it was really worth it to keep pushing forward in these journeys I’m on.  Afterall, in the 290’s, I’m again enjoying physical activities like trail hiking, and I can bend over and tie my shoes without calling it a workout. 

I also find fulfillment in posting stories to this blog from time-to-time, so it scratches that writing itch.  It’s good enough; maybe I just need to be okay where I’m at and stop thinking about all the steps I need to take toward writing a book because it can all feel rather overwhelming. 

Really…it’s all good enough.      

Have you ever been in that place in-between where you started and where you were heading; that place where you begin wondering if you’ll ever get there…looking back to see where you came from…looking up to see how far you still have to climb…and then wondering if you even want to get there?   

The mind-games can be powerful during these stretches of the trail.  When climbing on many trails, you get to a point when the view doesn’t change much.  It’s spectacular, but the view doesn’t change much from 11,000 feet to 14,000 feet.  So, then the question becomes, “what’s the point of continuing?” 

REMEMBER THE “WHY”

Remember your “Why?”.  It’s a trendy statement these days, but there’s a reason why we want to get to the summit.  When we start climbing, we’re not thinking about some random point along the trail between 11,000-14,000 feet, we’re thinking about what it will feel like getting to the summit. 

When we enter a race, we aren’t thinking about running some portion and then stopping, we picture crossing the finish line.  

We have to fight through these mental negotiations going on in our mind…these circumstances when we begin entering into negotiations around the terms of our surrender.   We have to remember what we were after when we began this journey…and oftentimes, there’s no getting around those stretches when we simply need to put our head down and focus on putting one foot in front of the other. 

Every day in my work, I hear clients talking about how they fight for their sobriety one minute, one hour, one day at a time.  It’s no different for any of us that are climbing toward something that challenges us at some deeper level. 

My wife started a business over 5 years ago.  Last year she had her best year and was in the top 20 of over 100 franchise owners nationwide in the company.  Yet, she has stretches along the trail where she questions whether she should just sell and go find a regular job.  She has to fight through her battles just like the addict…one minute, one hour, one day at a time…one foot in front of the other. 

If you’re someone like me who needs to lose weight, it’s easy to become satisfied with small gains…to be tired of the constant fight to be aware of your triggers.  It could be so easy to say where you’ve come from is “good enough”.  Please!  Don’t turn around, don’t be satisfied…keep stepping forward.

FONDLY REMEMBERING THE DARK SIDE

It’s been around 20 years since that trip through Deming, to grandma’s house.  As I remembered the details while writing this post, I probably had a slight smile.  As I reflected on the thoughts of all that scrubbrush and the truckers screaming by us on the highway, I can’t say I’d ever want to be in that place again…but the memory adds a perspective that, if nothing else, can be offered in this post.

I’m relatively certain somewhere deep down inside that there will be a time out in the future, if we will fight through these stretches of the trail, that we will be thankful on the other side that we kept going.  Like me, you may have those times when you have two flat tires and only one spare in the trunk…but hang in there, the jerk truckers keep honking so the tow truck is probably on it’s way.

Perhaps, you simply need to hang in there and refuse to negotiate a surrender. Perhaps you will soon be able to look back and find the joy in the darker side of your journey. 

Keep stepping forward…