L&K Take America

What a weekend! First of all, I have been really nervous to let someone really cut my hair since the orange mullet incident (refer to How it All Came to Happen). Every time I have gone to get my hair done in the last year, my stylist has said, “you sure you don’t want to cut this stuff off?” The “this stuff” referred to the remaining poor die job and resulting straw-like inches of hair that the mohawked guy had left me with.  However, on Friday, I walked into the salon and told her it was time, cut that stuff off.

At the time, I didn’t really identify how ironic this sense of readiness was. Not only was I ready to let go of the hair, it was also time to let go of the camper. Exactly a year and a day from the day I returned from my trip, I transferred ownership of the Flying Cloud.

Since the Spring, I have been casually trying to sell the camper. I wasn’t totally ready to let go of the sense of freedom that owning it still gave me.  While I have re-entered the uber-corporate world, I only intermittently drink the Kool-Aid. There have been serious ups and downs, as expected with any career, but anyone who knows me can appreciate how I have an unprecedented way of attracting highly unusual and typically highly uncomfortable professional (and personal) situations. The past year has proven to be no exception to that trend. The number of times I have heard, “this is NOT a typical engagement,” or “you have a way about you” is almost humorous…almost.

Owning the camper gave me the sense that I could decide I had “had enough”, slide my badge and laptop over the conference room table, walk out at, grab Luna, and hit the road, leaving the corporate hamster wheel in my rear-view mirror at any time.  It was my 5,000 lb aluminium security blanket. Is this healthy? Likely not, but everyone has their coping mechanisms, right??

Through my casual selling efforts, I came in contact with a woman on Long Island, via North Carolina who was a current owner of an older and smaller model Airstream, lived in it full time, and was looking for an upgrade. We arranged a time to meet for her to check out my camper, and she fell in love. Can’t say I can blame her. A few short weeks later, and there I was, hitching the capsule of some of my favorite memories to someone else’s Jeep. Siggghhhh…

As I was showing her how to use everything, kneeling on the ground, attaching the stabilizer bars for the last time, she turned to me and said, “I can’t believe you’re selling this.” It was all I could do to hold back the tears. All I could say was, “There will be another one in my future, just not now.” I cried once I got into my car and as I sit here now writing this, the tears are streaming silently down my face. Slight disappointment in myself that instead of figuring out how to work and live on the road that I took a job back in the massive soul-sucking machine I made deliberate and calculated decision to leave behind. That instead of exploring more of the country, I fly to New Jersey (which I had consciously avoided during my trip) every Monday morning and back every Thursday evening each week, wedded to a life of hotel bars, budget reports, arbitrary deadlines, and (missed) timesheets.

But this is not the end. This is just a close to a chapter.  An amazing chapter of adventures, frustration, “self-discovery” (even though I have grown to dislike that term), scaring myself into a new sense of self-confidence, and knowing that where I am today does not need to be where I am tomorrow, the next day or any day after that. I am in control of my destiny and I’m the only one who can take me out of any situation. I have made my bed, but I am the one who can buy a new bed and remake it any time I want to.

This is just part of my story. The story has been winding and seemingly scattered, and while I have made it more difficult for myself at times, it has afforded me some rather amazing experiences. I cannot wait for the next adventure.

Lesson of the Day: Change your hair, buy and sell things, and always make your own bed, sleep in it for a while, but don’t be afraid to rip off the sheets and make a whole new one.