The End Of The Road (The End Of This Journey)

Yes, on the second anniversary of my blog, I’ve decided that this is the end of the road; the end of this journey. 

When I started this two years ago, I didn’t have a plan of what I wanted to do, or how long I wanted to do this. I had a voice that I wanted to put out there and I was inspired by two other people specifically; one who had already started blogging and one who wanted to start blogging herself.  My first post immediately jumped into travelling/journey metaphor that has ended up being a central theme to a lot of my posts; but that wasn’t even planned - it just kinda happened.  And as with a lot of the literal road trips that I take, and as with life itself, a lot of this is all about taking into view what is happening to you at a particular moment; what you are seeing through your windshield, and taking what you think is the best fork in the road at that particular junction. 

136 posts later, in looking back at what this journey has been, I am proud, and to some extent, a little surprised. At the beginning, I honestly didn’t think I’d be writing posts for two years. But I’m proud of what I’ve done, and in particular, I’m proud of the topics that I have written about. Part of this blog hosting site allows each post to be labeled with keywords, and there have been some themes along the way that seems to be applicable to most of my posts. First, there is driving (7) and traveling (14). OK, there’s no surprise there. But, here are the most interesting ones: 

• Current events (11)
• In memory (10)
• Inspiration (35)
• Interpersonal connections (23)
• Just for fun (22)
• Provoking thought (59)
• Society (11)
• Support (17)
• Thanks (10)

I tried to make this fun, but I know there were times that I was probably a little heavy-handed.  But I’ve discovered some core beliefs here that I don’t think I was able to put into words before this blog.  I now have 136 posts of words to boil down into this one long thought:

We live in a fast-paced society, where the pace seems to be increasing before our very eyes.  There aren’t enough hours in the day, and the pressures of life and society seem to be increasing as well.  I think we’re all suffering in one way or another, but there isn’t any time to admit it. Without actually going back and re-reading my posts, I know I’ve written several times that we all need to SLOW DOWN. We need to take a back road every now and then and reconnect with a simpler time, a simpler place. But more importantly, we need to slow down and say hi to each other. Face-to-face, or voice-to-voice. We’re human and we need human interaction, human connection. Reading a thought on a screen is nice but so much gets lost when it’s digitized to a series of 0s and 1s. We need to SLOW DOWN and take the time to be appreciative and thankful for what, and WHO, we have.  We can’t let that fall to assumption; we can’t think that “they know I appreciate” them. Stress and pressure tend to distort the way we think and assumptions get twisted and then we all become one big mass of confusion.  Technology is good on one level; we get to “stay in touch” more. But we need to truly in touch, and that can’t happen without looking someone in the eye, or listening to a tone in their voice, that tells us without a doubt in the world that we’re important to each other. Because, as I almost painfully learned two months ago; it could all be taken away in the blink of an eye. One minute, you’re listening to “Bold Changes” in your car, and the next minute a truck, and your world, is turned upside down. And it’s time to make some bold changes.

   

I put a lot of myself in my blog. I’ve gotten a lot out of this blog. I hope that I have had an impact on anyone who had read. I’ve gotten some feedback over these two years – most of my feedback came from my two sources of blog inspiration. There’s something about writing that is empty or hollow without feedback. There’s something about writing where the writer is trying to make a connection, and without knowledge of that connection, what is written becomes just a bunch of words and letters on paper – or in this context, on a screen.  So, it’s also no surprise that one of my most used themes, in addition to the above, was:  Who am I? (27).

This is the end of this journey, but every end is a new beginning.  The destination of yesterday is the starting point of today. My next journey is going to be more inward, and upward, than outward. As I ended with “Who am I?”, I am starting with “Who am I?” And I have some changes to make - some bold changes.   What those changes will be, I’ll find out along the way; along the journey. 

I still may post from time to time, but if and when I do, it will probably be under a different blog “umbrella.” There are a couple of web services that can import blogs and create printed books out of them, and I plan on doing that here. This is something that I want to save in a permanent, real, tangible sense. 

Thank you all for your support and inspiration; thank you for your connection. Keep your eyes open on the road of life – you never know when you may come across something beautiful around the next bend.