Rewiring Me: My Ride One Year Later

A year ago this week, I woke at 6:00 a.m. I donned my motorcycle gear and propped my phone on the ground with rocks. I took this last selfie before I rode off on the first day of my Motorcycle Ride Across America.

On that day, I was stripped of a lifetime driven by fear and trauma, and I was riding into an uncertain future. I was still full of grief. Grief for my mom, grief over my marriage, grief for my past life, grief because of my new life. I didn’t know if I had a home to return to. If I didn’t, then, I was riding toward another life transition. I had a road tour of friends, family and solitude ahead. With that on my mind, I donned my helmet, accelerated up the steep winding driveway and headed east.

6000 Miles to go.

Five.

Five years ago this week, I celebrated the start of my transition from technology to food studies with a surfing vacation in Costa Rica. I met Robert August. As he grooved to Michael Jackson, I watched him expertly shape a surf board. Here was a man defining life on his own terms and making it work. It was inspiring and I drank it all up. I thought “I am ready for this next phase of my life.”

I was. So. Very. Wrong.

Four.

Four years ago this week, I had just finished a summer Food Values class. I was in a hurry to get though my MLA in Gastronomy, so I took classes all the time. I am sure I was hurling myself as quickly as possible to graduation because I desperately needed to jump into this next phase of my life. That week, Mom finished a round of Chemo and we took a long weekend trip to Burlington, Vermont. It was the last trip we took together. We didn’t need to rush. A few months later, she went to live with my sister in North Carolina.

Three.

Three years ago this week, I was on a job roller coaster of soaring ups and pummeling downs. I was burning out working 75 hours a week as a program coordinator for fraction of the pay from my previous life. I thought I landed an opportunity that would usher in that next phase of my life. It was unsustainable. I lasted a few more months before leaving in tears, heartbroken.

Two.

Two years ago this week, I was mailing thank you notes after my mother’s funeral. I was keeping busy enough to properly appear like I was fully into that next phase of life. Faking it until I could make it. As I plowed through to-do lists with my head down, I even managed to convince myself I had it all together. A month later, I started a 2-week long intensive therapy program. With the same zeal, I attended it and expected to accelerate myself through 7-stages of grief and get on with the next phase of my life.

One.

Last year, I couldn’t do it anymore. My faking it cracked and shattered. One day, I took to this blog space and admitted to the ether that I was broken. Y’all probably thought I was telling you. I was really telling me. My public declaration was me saying to me, “Just stop.”

It was weird to admit I didn’t have my shit together. I’d never really done that.

I slipped off to California. And for weeks, I just stopped. I just let go of the pretense, the ego, the fakery, the “I got this shit all figured out” facade.

From that first confession about my midlife break down, I started returning to this space to admit, mostly to myself, I don’t have this shit figured out. Y’all just got to go along for the ride.

I bared my heart and I bought a motorcycle.

For the first time in my life, I had no idea where I was going. Well, I knew I was going across this continent on my motorcycle. Life was what I hadn’t figured out. I had no objectives. No performance reviews. No grades. No proving shit to anyone, not even me. No goals. Nothing I desperately needed achieve. Well, except to ride a motorcycle. . . across a whole freaking continent.

It was a strange and unfamiliar place for me.

I would figure something out about phases of life later. All I had to do was ride and embrace the uncertainty.

Now, a year on, I’ve only figured out a few things. My marriage found a way to survive – perhaps we will call it MotoTherapy. I did come home. I’m continuing negotiations with my ego and the demons that have followed me my whole life. I still have no idea where my life is going.

I am fortunate enough to contemplate this all from a place of comfort. The uncertainty is getting uncomfortable though. It took all those years to strip myself free of a past built on trauma. I think to myself, “Am ready for this next phase of my life?”

Happy Cooking and Thinking.