I-25 North of Cheyenne, WY
A VERY SPECIFIC HOUR
I was wrapping up my “morning pages” exercise – credit to Julia Cameron and “The Artist’s Way” on this, and I made a comment in my writing about not knowing what was out over the next horizon… and following up with the statement that I would never know the answer to that question if I didn’t get moving… and that’s when the memory hit me.
It was 1997… probably sometime between June and July because any other time of year I risked getting stuck in a flash blizzard with one inch of snow and 80-mile an hour winds shutting down the interstate north of Cheyenne (If you’re from Wyoming you totally understand that joke).
I worked for exactly one year in a job with the State of Wyoming and my office was located about ½ mile from the Lincolnway exit onto Interstate 25 which traveled north/south. It was not the most rewarding job… obviously because I was there only a year, and I felt especially trapped by the structure of the hours. I was to report by 8:00am and work until 5:00pm with an hour lunch from 12:00-1:00pm… no deviating from the hours. This job taught me that I am simply not wired to operate in that kind of structure, and it was the last job I ever had with rigid time demands like that.
On this very specific day, I grabbed my lunch (but not before 12:00!), and I headed out to my car. I had come up with the idea at some point during the morning that I was going to deceive myself into believing I was free from the prison cell my employer constantly referred to as my “Office”.
I got into my car, sped out of the parking lot and within a minute, I was on I-25 heading north. Within 5 or so miles, I would be at the north edge of Cheyenne and if you’re a person who believes the world is flat, you get a bit stressed and begin to look for the edge… because there is nothing out there.
Now, I totally disrespected Wyoming north of Cheyenne, because the truth is it’s incredibly beautiful… IF you love grasslands, rolling hills, some distant smaller mountain ranges, and so many buttes! The scenery is rugged and absolutely breath-taking… but be careful getting out of your vehicle because there aren’t any stop signs out there for the wind… it can be a challenge on any given day.
The most beautiful part of this photo is… no traffic!
So back to the particular hour prompting this story…
I remember being in that moment out on the open road… few cars around, memories of the 10X10 office-cell fading in my mind, and I became fascinated by watching the highway out my windshield… miles out ahead of me I could spot the interstate going over a small hill and disappearing, then way out ahead, I would see it reappear only to disappear still further out on the horizon. I’d wonder how many miles I was able to see… 5… 6…10?
Unfortunately, reality interrupted my fun by reminding me I needed to keep my eyes on the clock as well. Driving 30 minutes out required that I also drive 30 minutes back, and if I strayed too far out there, I could expect to walk back in the office and hear my boss call me in to remind me about attaching the coversheet with my TPS reports.
I’m adding random humor to this point, but inside I was struggling… I was feeling so confined… I was like a dog on a leash, a horse fenced in a small corral… my spirit was being broken… and all this was by my own choices.
I kept driving north… I still had some time left. I saw the road disappear over a hill out ahead… I looked at the clock in my vehicle… I still had time. I wanted to see what was out there on the horizon… over that next hill… I needed to see what was out there!
I knew it was just going to be more hills, more road… but it didn’t matter. I needed to see. I got there, I saw it, and I also knew I was pushing the time needed to get back. It was time to turn around and head back.
… and this morning… that’s when I wrote the words that became the title to this blog post…
…I don’t want to turn around anymore…
CLOSING THOUGHT:
Hopefully there is so much more to this story… but it is yet to be written, and if it’s going to be written, I’m the one who’s going to need to get it done.