The Start of a Personal Journey

The places I visit will be great, but the feelings I’ll feel and the growth I’ll experience will surpass any landmarks or sunsets.

In seven days I’ll set off on an unforgettable journey.

The Idea

Back in October 2020, I was hell-bent on getting out of Minnesota. I am a contractor/freelancer so I have the ability to work remotely. Up until then, I hadn’t much considered it. Either I had a dog so I felt tied to where I lived, or was in a relationship with someone who couldn’t work remotely, or any other excuse I could think of that would keep me in my comfort zone.

Once I started to seriously consider working fully remote, I realized it wasn’t as difficult to pull off as I had imagined. After some initial digging, I was kicking around trips to Croatia, looking at states that paid you to work remotely, buying items “digital nomads” swore by. I was fully in.

I put all of those plans on pause once I found an apartment I really liked. I decided to stick it out in Minnesota for another 18 months at least. I moved in on May 1, 2021 and kept plugging along at life.

Then came September 25, 2021.

The Pause

My brother and I got a group text from my dad asking us to meet him at his next doctor's appointment. He had a hunch the news wasn’t good. He mentioned to his doctor that he wanted my brother and me at his next appointment. His doctor felt that was a good idea.

What we walked into would set all of our lives on a completely different path.

I remember a lot from that appointment, but I specifically remember the doctor saying over and over “I’m concerned”. My dad had initially gone to the doctor for acid reflux caused by some blood pressure meds he was taking. The doctor mentioned how much weight my dad had lost and my dad jokingly said, “Yeah, and I haven’t even been exercising!”. First red flag for the doctor.

After initial scans and x-rays, and another appointment with an oncologist, dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 esophageal cancer that had spread to his liver and lungs.

If caught early enough, life expectancy is up to five years. It hadn’t been caught early.

We had a little over seven months left with dad. He was diagnosed on September 25, 2021, and died on May 7, 2022. I wish I could say those months were filled with trips and dinners and memories and laughter. But they weren’t. They were filled with angst, anger, and fear. Pill bottles, hospital visits, tense moments, confusion, and tears.

I want to take a sledgehammer to the memories. The memories of my father slowly become a shell of his former self. The memories of his yellow-grey, glossy eyes staring at me from his mechanical hospital bed.

The memories of his last breath — the last time I touched his lifeless arm. The weight of it. It felt like the heaviest thing in the universe.

The memory of the two young funeral home workers removing his body from his bedroom. The sound of the zipper of the body bag. The silence at his house the night he passed. Once the funeral home workers left, my brother Joe and I sat in a pondering silence in my dad's unfinished basement.

Joe, finishing a cigar he had smoked a few weeks prior with my dad, stood and stared out into the Norwood Young America night. I just sat on one of the many memory-filled storage bins my dad never emptied. I just sat there and thought. Thought about the last conversation I had with my dad. Thought about what I could’ve done differently. I thought about the past. I thought about what was next.

It was then I fully realized I needed a change of scenery. For how long? Who knows. For an amount of time, at least.

I need to get away from the reminders. The reminders of those I’ve loved and lost. I need to make new memories so the hurtful old ones can be left to burn. I need to get away.

The First Stop

The first stop is Sperry, Oklahoma where my dog and I will hang our hats on the first night of our journey. The next morning, we head to Austin Texas for the month of November.

From there, we head to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the month of December. Why New Mexico, you may ask? Well, the exact reason you asked that question. Why not New Mexico?

After that, we could go anywhere. I have yet to book anywhere after December. Maybe I want to come back to Minnesota. Maybe I’ll want to go to a different state I have yet to check out. Maybe I’ll want to go back to Austin or stick around in New Mexico for another month.

Who knows. All I know is it’s time for a change. I knew 2022 was going to be formative, but how formative I really had no idea.

And still don’t.

Good luck out there.