We'll be Alright.
It had been a year. A year of insurmountable lows and mind-blowing highs. Funny enough, I started the last one in about the same place that we were at right then. Sitting in the passenger side of his truck, driving through whatever open hill country that was close to Yorba Linda in the heart of the Orange County countryside. Except this year was different. I was finally living somewhere that I wanted to be, surrounded by people that all pretty much wanted to do what I wanted to do. I was finally achieving some of the dreams and goals that I had thought for a time, were so far away.
Over the course of the past year I had successfully finished my last seasons of collegiate running, moved to a virtual (or literal) paradise in Estes Park, Colorado, and made it home. Beyond that I began the highlights of my career as an alpinist, achieving climbs with my partners, Matt Siler and Brooks Ferguson, that I would have never attempted before. I was mountain biking whenever I wanted, running on whatever trails perked my fancy, and meeting wonderful people that had seen things I could only dream of at the moment. I was also on my way to becoming a well-versed and experienced Fire/Rescue and EMS professional. For the first time in my entire life it felt like I was going somewhere with my goals. I felt like I was finally doing something with myself worth while.
Of course, progress has a way of reminding you that everything isn’t always easy. In the course of the last year as well, I had collapsed a lung (and recovered fully from it thank God), almost died on several occasions throughout several different disciplines of climbing and work (and from several different causes), figured out crashing wasn’t always the best thing to do on a mountain bike, realized that I have to watch myself a little more closely around the booze, and that I have an innate inner feeling of penetrating loneliness. With my blossoming career in EMS and the fire service I was having to face more things that I didn’t completely understand as well, in addition to having to face some things from my past that I didn’t necessarily want to confront. The good comes with the bad I guess.
It was a day before New Years and Jared and I were back together, going over life and it’s beauty, challenges, and everything in between as we always did while we got together in Yorba Linda. I made a point to see him and the rest of the family at least a couple times a year, as they are important to me. Regardless, it’s two dudes in a truck going over life in the late evening SoCal sun, you get the idea. It’s all picturesque and whatnot.
Before I had left the day after Christmas from Denver International I really had a few moments of self-realization that made me think. Christmas was great. Other than working some fill-in shifts at the fire station, I was invited over to a close mentor, David LaSalle’s home and stayed with them when I wasn’t working. The time that I did have to myself though, I was left to my own thoughts. For a person like me, that’s not always a good thing.
It hit me, above all else that regardless of all the great things springing forth in my life, despite all of the groundbreaking blessings that were occurring all around me, I was still unhappy about one thing: I was lonely. I don’t know if it was the limited possibility of dating that occurs in such a mountain town as Estes Park, or what, but for some damn reason I couldn’t get the notion out of my brain that I had the deep-set longing for another person in my life. Over Christmas especially, it nagged me to no end. For a person that tends to get infatuated into things like I usually do quite often, this wasn’t a healthy thing.
On Christmas Eve, and the following Christmas Day, the LaSalle’s had invited me to stay with them for the night. This was heavily appreciated by myself, as anytime that I spent with them, I had unfettered access to fantastic wines (and heavily appreciated it), wonderful food, and of course the best company. Regardless, between myself and anyone that reads this, it’s probably good that I didn’t drive over those couple days and just stayed with them at their place. I sat with David and Alix on Christmas Eve and talked and laughed as we usually did. Koda, their large and loveably stubborn Anatolian Shepherd mix sauntered into the room and passed out on the floor. I got up off the couch and sat down on the floor next to him. The moment was relaxed and happy, but there was still something bothering the shit out of me in the back of my mind.
I wasn’t just facing the fact that I was lonely, I was also coming to the realization that the loneliness came from something much deeper. An epiphany that I had been on the cusp of for so long within myself, and now it chose it’s time to fully blossom. It hit me: I wasn’t lonely. I was coming to the conclusion that regardless of what goals I had accomplished, regardless of anything that I got done that was once seen as unattainable before to myself, It didn’t matter what I did as long as I still had more to accomplish. I was just using the singleness thing to distract what was really being realized in my own mind. I came to the same conclusion that many I assume come to as well when they accomplish things thought to be so hard to do before. I realized that there would always be something more, always another level higher. Always more goals to accomplish regardless of the ones that I had just attained. The realization bounced around on the inside of my brain like a ricocheting bullet. As the servant stands behind the emperor during a parade in Rome after a great victory and reminds him that he is still mortal, the thoughts in my head did nearly about the same to myself.
Jared and I continued down the small two lane road that came off of the crowded highway coming back from Laguna Beach. In the dwindling twilight that came off of the ridgeline beyond us, I could make out the outline of several of the houses poised above the Santa Ana river valley below. I studied their shadowed rooflines in comparison to the deep red and orange sky beyond them. Jared shook his head, “I just don’t know man, I don’t know why it’s hard for people like us sometimes.” I sat there silent. The thing that bothered me the most in all of it was that it really wasn’t that hard. Granted, the goals that I had accomplished, and the continuing goals for the future required quite a bit of work, but in reality, in the grand scheme of everything I was blessed. I was blessed beyond comparison. I lived somewhere beautiful, I had people that loved me, and I found beauty beyond what I could have ever imagined. I had no reason to carry such angst with me for so long.
The Silverado’s engine purred a little louder as we climbed the final hill back to the house. I watched a few joggers running on the trail next to the road up the steep hill. I gave a brief exhale of air that could’ve been a laugh, as I suffered the same that morning on the hill during my run. “All pain is relative I suppose” I mumbled back to Jared. Knowing full well that wasn’t an answer, but more a statement of conflict within myself. Jared’s eyebrows perked for a moment, “Maybe it’s all not that bad, I don’t know.” He shook his head again as he said that. I could see the internal conflict in his eyes as well.
Perhaps that is what makes life so poignantly beautiful for those that choose to experience as much as they can. When one aims to experience happiness, they must first understand pain to make the good moments all that much sweeter. Too see how far you have come, sometimes you have to look back every once and a while. To go farther you must look forward beyond the near-present. I cracked a small smile looking out at the last little bit of sunlight as we crested the hill near the house. I turned to Jared, “You know brother, I think we’re going to be just alright.” Jared sat silent then opened his mouth slowly before we pulled into the front drive, “Eh, Yeah maybe.”
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