Road 199

I have been struggling with some issues lately in my life. These issues range into a few facets of my life and I might clear some of it up in this post. Thought I think it will take a lot of time to work though all the issues and I wonder in a sense if it is partially mid-life crisis. One thing I know is I don’t have any desire to buy a new sports car. It is more than just filing these desires and wonders with monetary items. When talking and thinking about all these items though I have found for the sake of comparison that I use different items to describe my thoughts.

I been looking back at the last 15 years or so of my life and in depth the last 4 years keep making me think in depth. I know the last 4 years or so I have been subconsciously starting to look at my life. Now I seem to think I am at some cross roads in my life and that some choices I will make in the near future will affect my life for the next 60 years (Yes I plan to live to be 100).

Some of my thoughts and questions I have are where am I going in life? What have I accomplished? Am I living my life the way I want? Am I going to make changes in my life for the future of my health and happiness? Can I find happiness? What makes me happy? Who cares in the end? Should I be doing things in my life in different ways or with different people?

This weekend I decided to kind of run away and take a look at my life a bit. The idea was to think a lot about the path my life is on and see if I could look ahead on a couple of paths and see if I could see where they lead. Here is a bit of the story and some of my thoughts along the way. I headed out Friday night with my truck packed for the weekend of camping in the mountains. I had no goal, or direction but to head basically west. I would camp, buy food, whatever as I needed on the trip.



I drove Friday night up to an area above Red Feather called Dead Man. As I reached the area and dusk was setting I looked for a place to pull over and put up the tent in the waning light. I had a fire and drank some beer and stared at the stars. They are truly beautiful to stare at when away from the city lights. I had a good night sleep and laid there for once with no hurry to get up. When I did I packed up everything and then went for a run. I ran up Dead Man hill climbing 700 feet in 2.5 miles. In the end I covered 5 miles in 51 minutes. Yep still had to get my run in to keep the mind as sane as I can at least.



I then headed west again in search of whatever I could fine. My motto was hmmm I wonder where that road goes as I turned off and headed on a new trail. I was driving along this one trail when I saw this tail disappear under a bush. As I got closer I saw it was a bird. This was the strangest acting bird I have ever seen. When I got close to the bird he got into the road. He criss-crossed back in forth across the road in front of my truck. As I kept moving forward the bird did also never moving from the road. I had to get out and scare it to the side of the road only for the bird to try to get back in front of my truck. I wonder did this bird have suicide thoughts by jumping in front of a moving truck. I finally got the bird to move to the side and I got by but then found this bird running along the side of my truck. He would bounce his head into bush branches but still keep running along chasing me. If I stopped the bird would again jump in front of my truck. Finally I did get by the bird and left it behind me, and as I looked out my rear view mirror only to find the bird chasing me still down the road.

I later found that this road was a dead end and turned around to head back out. As I did I encountered the same bird again going the other direction. The same thing as before happened just going the other directions. So the questions I have are who is the strange acting suicidal bird in my life? What did this bird and his actions tell me? Will I end up watching in my rear view mirror of life this same thing happen to someone? Will the bird die anyway and all that is happening is just prolonging the inevitable?



I continued along wondering where each road went and trying them. As I found many times that they all lead to a dead end. This hits me as a bit depressing wondering how many times I am going to run down a dead end road before I fine one that goes through to a path I need to be on. I think in my life I have bounced along a bunch of dead ends already especially in the last few years with both jobs ending and with other areas as I looked around in my life.

I was on the road labeled 199 which is now becoming an important part of my thoughts. Let’s see if you can follow all the pieces to this road as you read and associate it to life and what you know from my writing above.

It was a good road. One that seemed well traveled and showed signs of being the right road. It looked like many people had traveled this road ahead of me though I didn’t see anyone on this road at the moment. In fact I have seen more people lately on a different road and one that I might really be on and not this one. In any case I continued on 199 and soon there became a few problems in the road. I got out of the truck looked at the first set of problems and did some assessment. I finally determined that if I maneuvered correctly and aimed everything at the right angle I could fix this problem and continue on the road. I was right and I was able to maneuver going this direction but I knew that if the road dead ended like so many had before I was going to be in trouble. If I got through it going this direction would be fine coming from the other direction I would not get through it.



Well as you see I made it and then the next obstacles in the road hit me. I don’t have pictures of them but I handled them the same way as the first one. I first stopped the truck, got out, looked over the problem, walked down the path and assessed the issue the best I could. Each time, I looked back up the path I had just traveled to this point. I thought of what was behind me and I felt stuck. As each problem went behind me it made the return journey less and less a viable option. At one point the option was posed to me as continue on this path/road in hopes that the journey ends with me getting out or try and return to face the problems behind me again. I continued on with some of the problems causing damage as I drug a tail pipe on rocks and put a dent in my tail gate of my truck.



Suddenly all hope arose and I opened up into a field. I could see a cabin in the distance and I thought wow someone else out here with me. The road looked open again and the problems were all behind me. I was feeling pretty good and I came to a fork in the road. One fork lead up and the other down. I thought to myself I should take the high road as that is what should always happen. So I did and as I drove along the two roads ended up merging again. So did it matter if I took the high road or the low road will I just end up in the same place?



I continued on enjoying the view for a while longer when suddenly my heart sank when I then pulled out of some trees to find what I feared, the dead end. The road seemed to end where this ditch and washed out the road. I was going to have to turn around and go all the way back and figure out problems again. I am beginning to get upset and worried that I won’t ever find the path of happiness for me and get out of this predicament in 1 piece. I did notice though that across the ditch there was a section I could get out IF I could get across the ditch. I cannot see myself trying to go backwards so I rolled up the windows and took the stream at speed. I made it across and climbed up out of the area.

I am still traveling down this road. Where I am going to come out is still in question but I am still moving. The next obstacle I encountered was a bridge. The bridge sign read. “Cross at your own risk weight capacity unknown”. As you can see I put the truck on it as I kept moving forward down this road.





This ended up being the last of the problems and since I am now writing all this it shows I made it through. I ended up coming out into an area I knew and was able to make it home. This road seemed to show me a lot now if I could only make sense of it all. I know I am on some path in my life now. I know some things I want to happen in the future. I am not sure who, how, when, or where.

Will it end in a dead end or will it come out like road 199? What problems will I still encounter? What forks in the road will I take? Will I make the right decisions for me? Will I end up living the life I want and be happy or will I end up stuck in the problems never moving forward? Will I have to travel this road alone or will there be someone with me that will support and help me through it? Anyone else find themselves in this same positon?

If anyone has any answers to any of this or comments I am always anxious to listen and hear different points of view.