It's been a year. We embarked on our journey on March 26, 2010. It's now March 31, 2011, and every morning I wake up and remember exactly what we were doing exactly a year ago.
For instance, yesterday morning we woke up early in Roswell, NM and drove to Carlsbad Caverns to explore a giant hole in the earth. At this moment, today, we were probably making our way through the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, OK. And a few hours from now, we were cursing having to pay $14 in tolls to drive a road that kicked up so many rocks and crap that we were sure the windshield was going to shatter into a million pieces.
I hear different songs, either on the radio or in my playlist on my phone or computer, and I am instantly brought back to various spots along the way. Like "We Weren't Born to Follow" by Bon Jovi reminds me of the tunnel at 11,000 ft in the Rockies and how we came out of it to find flurries of snow and white mountain tops as far as we could see. I also remember feeling scared to death my car would slip and slide the entire way down.
I thought it would be funny, before we left, to make a cd with just "On the Road Again" on it and to play it every time we got back in the car. I wouldn't have known then that it would become our ritual to play it every morning when we got back on the road. Hearing it always makes me think of different places, different Holiday Inns and KOA Kampgrounds. And a random place in the middle of nowhere in Utah where we thought it would be funny to make a video with that song in the background.
I feel a sense of sadness about our trip. I'm not sure exactly why or where that sadness originates. I loved our trip and I am so happy that we did it. The memories I have are some of the best in my head. Maybe I wonder if that was the best there will ever be, and if that's the case, the best time of my life has already passed. I proposed this idea to Jim last night before we went to sleep. He said "until we do it again." I smiled. I never would have thought we'd do it again. I told him we couldn't, though, because we'd be having kids soon. He said we'll go when we're older then. I guess that'll be good.
Partly, I think I feel sad because it's over. Even though it's been over for a year, I miss being on the road. I miss lugging our stuff into the hotel on a cart every night and making sandwiches in the passenger's seat for lunch. I won't say that toward the end these things didn't get old. They did. But they still spark a sensation of nostalgia whenever I replay them in my head.
That trip changed both of our lives, I think. Neither of us had done anything like that before. And we learned a lot about ourselves as a couple. Not trying to kill each other within the confines of a compact car for a month and a half speaks volumes of our ability to get along and deal with challenges. Sure, we had our little scuffs here and there, and we got on each other's nerves at times, but we were always able to get over it and move on with our day without letting it get in the way of the experience at hand.
And it's funny to think about how far from the people we were then we are now. We're engaged. We will be married in October. We've created a home together, just for the two of us. We have a fabulous new trip planned, granted it's a shorter one. We both have new career aspirations and we're working toward achieving our dreams.
It just goes to show that life does go on. We keep moving forward, growing and changing. But no matter how far we go, how much we change, that trip, the trip of our lives, will be forever ingrained in who we are those memories will make me smile until my last breathing day.
