Whats Happened Since I Left California (for those who are just getting to know the project now) AKA The Longest Status Update ever I left from the dark blue-green ocean of Venice Beach, California. The beginning of this adventure was like a chaotic dream. All our friends and family and sponsors showed up on Day 1 to support the journey and send us off. There must have been over 100 people there. I left the love of my life as I took my first steps eastward, promising to wait for him, not knowing what would happen over the course of the next few months. I was focused completely on my mission, which wis made up of three parts: 1) Use the run as a way to stand up for our Veterans, and to raise awareness for problems that they face and some of the solutions that are available. 2) Create opportunities for others to experience empathy, compassion, generosity and community. 3) Show that individuals become empowered through their community. Lets be real. Running across America is pure insanity. Fortunately, I didnt realize this until the second day of my trip. But my mind was made up, and I was resolved to complete it regardless of what obstacles I would face. In the blink of an eye, I met the desert. Within two weeks, both of my ankles were sprained, my lips were chapped, and the inside of my nostrils were scabbed over and bleeding. My heart was full of excitement and fear. In those difficult days, I never thought about anything beyond the present, because each waking moment was battle against the elements, against my body, against all of the mental monsters that had started to appear as spent more and more hours alone on the road. Through Arizona I learned to make friends with desolation. I trained myself to find beauty in abandoned houses, cactus, and scrappy roadside shrubs. I learned to love the desert, recognizing that there was nothing to lose there but my illusion. I encountered huge mountains, snakes warming themselves on the shoulder of the road, huge 18-wheelers that would creep over to the side of the road and send me flying off the edge of it. Deserts are a refuge for the broken-hearted, for in that vast expanse of space and sky, you can feel a strange safety that there is nothing left to lose. When you learn to be happy in the desert, you can be enormously grateful for the one cloud that passes over the sun at high noon, because it gives you a tiny reprieve for one minute. You learn how to stretch that minute out. Running through the desert was like breaking down all of my beliefs and starting to slowly rebuild them back into something stronger. In New Mexico, I learned to relax. I accepted that my body would be in revolt for the whole trip. I ran past miles and miles of yucca plants and power lines and skies that looked like red and yellow roses blossoming. I climbed more mountains, ran past blinding white sand dunes, and started to face serious demons on the road. I felt myself changing, hardening, getting stronger, getting tougher. I felt myself getting softer too, more prone to tears of gratitude and sincerity. I fell in love in New Mexico, and I allowed someone to truly take care of me for the first time in my life. We had already been seeing each other for over a year, but my irrational mistrust in others would never let me completely relax and love freely. I experienced surrender, in a way that left me humbled and grateful and breathless. For the first time in my life, I knew for certain that I was awake. Texas was like a dream. Miles and miles of ranches with horses that would walk right up to the fence and let you pet their long necks and kiss their noses. I started carrying apples in my camelpak, as these meetings were some of my favorite moments of the whole day. I would run up to herds of cows grazing by fences and incite them to get them to run with me. Sometimes, it worked. In Texas, I learned to say yall, to smile and wave no matter what, and started to understand the meaning of southern hospitality. I also started to deal with disappointment, self-doubt, and anxiety. I wondered if I was making a difference. I spend so much time on the road that is nearly impossible to do anything else at the end of some days. I felt overwhelmed with the burden that I must give more, somehow find more energy stores. And then things got harder. After we passed through Dallas, our friend drove under a low bridge and knocked the AC unit off the top of our RV. We patched it up as best we could, and had to start accepting the fact that our journey through the South in the summer was going to be exponentially more difficult than we imagined. Right as you pass Dallas, you start to feel the air get thicker and heavier. Running through Louisiana and Mississippi was like being transported into another country, another time. I was completely romanced by the South. Ive always been a bookworm, and some of my most beloved authors are from the South: Carson McCullers, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, Truman Capote, Margaret Mitchell, to name a few. I felt like I had already been there. This was one of those rare occurrences in life where what you expect comes extremely close to reality. And I loved it. I loved the Southern accents, the exceedingly friendly people that seemed to be everywhere, and the green lush forests and swamps and farmland that seemed to extend in every direction. I saw my first bayous, my first swamps, and I ran through a cornfield. I spent an afternoon at a English-style hunting lodge and watched an alligator lounging by a lake about 20 feet away from me. I encountered people who treat you like family within minutes of meeting you. This is not to say that it was easy at all. It is sad, but a lot of that time is a blur for both Robot and I. It was a stressful time, as the heat took an extreme toll on every member of my team. We really had to turn off our brains for a while, compartmentalizing our stress and discomfort. Temperatures rose to above 100 degrees on some days, with nearly 100 percent humidity. In Louisiana, we replaced the air conditioning unit, only to find that it would make our generator fail. Our fridge broke for a while, and we did not even have cold water. In Alabama, we encountered more obstacles, and received more blessings. We got into an accident in our RV when a Porsche careened into the back of us going about 120 miles per hour. The driver of the other vehicle died on the scene. No one in our vehicle was hurt. Matt came back to help out after being gone for over a month, and I found myself in the midst of a total emotional collapse after letting myself feel vulnerable for the first time in my life. Matt fixed the AC and the generator and made all of the suffering we were experiencing in the RV virtually disappear. All of a sudden, I felt like I could breathe again. Interestingly enough, this caused a total emotional upheaval, as I now had the energy to react to the previous months stress. Running through Georgia was the hardest part of my trip, as every day I was afraid of going out on the road, for fear of what thoughts might go through my head. After years of battling anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress, it was like I had to start completely over from scratch, rehashing and coming to terms with every part of my past and my life that I didnt like. I felt out of control emotionally in a way that I have never experienced before. I could not control my own thoughts and emotions. Instead, they were controlling me. The scariest part of this was questioning my own sanity, and wondering if this journey would end up changing me permanently in a negative way. I felt that somehow I had lost part of my free spirit, and I wondered if the grave, serious, unbalanced version of myself was the new me. I have never questioned my sanity before. Previously in my life, most of the anxiety I have experienced was based not on what was going on inside of me, but what was going on outside of me. I have never before been consumed by the idea that somehow I have been broken for good. I am more grateful for this experience than any other. My goal in this project, to raise awareness about the challenges that veterans are facing, is centered around the idea that it is possible to create opportunities for others to experience empathy, compassion, and community. In this instance, I felt that more than ever I was able to empathize with veterans. At some points it got so bad that I had morbid thoughts of jumping into traffic or putting myself into harms way, because I wanted so badly for my mind to quiet. This just goes to show that even after all we have learned, we can be surrounded by beauty, with seemingly nothing wrong, and yet we can find ourselves feeling like we are clawing at the edge of a cliff, dangling. Instead, I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I thought often of the twenty-two veterans who kill themselves every day, and I felt an empathy for each of those men and women that surpassed any emotion I have ever experienced. My gratitude and love for them became enormous. I thought of what advice I had given others-- to treat negative thoughts as unwelcome visitors in your home, to focus on your breath, to rely on the love and support of others. I took my own advice, and sheepishly reached out to Robot and Matt, breaking down in tears and vocalizing the my fears. I realized how hard it is to admit your weaknesses and fears to those you love the most, because you imagine how it will hurt and trouble them. Especially when you feel that it is your job to be strong. I realized that when you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you are giving others an opportunity to be strong for you. That is a gift-- one that you give both to yourself and the ones you love. Allowing others to rise up and take control when you cannot is truly empowering for everyone. You start to see how incredible the people in your life are, and how deep their love truly goes. They are given the opportunity to be the best version of themselves.. I realized that while running will help you take the edge off, and will create daily victories in your life that allow you to start rebuilding your confidence...the most important thing I think (for Veterans as well as civilians) is making sure that you have people around who love you. This puts a heavy responsibility on all of us as members of our community, because part of being truly supportive is giving love and understanding to those who need it, without them having to ask for it first. We have to be on the lookout for ways to offer our help and assistance, because often asking for help is the most difficult thing. I have seen on this trip that I am truly a novice at this. Compassion, generosity and love is a way of life for so many, and I feel often like a student when I witness the outpouring of love that comes so naturally to some people. This was a skill that I had to learn, and that I am still trying to get better at. When I think of all the supporters of this project, my sponsors, all the friends at home and that I have met along the way, all the people who have given us what we need to complete it--it just reaffirms my belief that strong communities truly empower individuals, and those individuals in turn empower their communities with the strength and fortitude that they receive. Alas, all things will eventually come to an end. Experiences, relationships, excitement, hardship, misery, and life itself. It is the saddest and most beautiful truth imaginable. We lose that which we love, but we also lose that which we do not love. When we are in the dark night of the soul, it is important to know that it will not last forever. We just have to keep pushing forward. It does not matter how fast or slow we advance, and it does not matter if at times we have to retrace our steps or start over from scratch. I emerged from my experience in Georgia a stronger, happier, and clearer person. Unfortunately, because I failed to be present through most of it, a lot of the beauty of the land was lost on me. This was especially sad because I was more excited to run through Georgia than any other place in America. Part of me wonders if it is more beneficial to compartmentalize negative feelings and thoughts when we have the opportunity to experience extreme beauty. At the same time, I recognize that a larger part of this journey is an internal one. As I run through the landscapes of America, I am also exploring the peaks and valleys of my awareness. Sometimes one or the other will take the stage completely. It seems to be the case that the more blessings I receive from God, or the Universe, or whatever you want to call that energy which is pure love, the more challenges I face. Ive started to recognize that the challenges and the obstacles are blessings too. They are exactly what Ive asked for-- the experiences needed to become stronger, more aware, more compassionate, more forgiving, more present. Running through the Carolinas was incredible. In South Carolina and North Carolina, I was able to regain my composure and start marveling at all the beauty around me again, even though I am now in more pain than I can ever remember being in. I dont know if Im just more present, or if this really the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Every crumbling country road, every broken down car covered with leaves and vines, every sunburnt farmer wearing overalls and smiling at me as I pass-- everything feels like it is in technicolor, too sharp and in focus to be real. Yesterday, I crossed the state line in Virginia. I can feel myself getting a little sad, knowing that I am leaving the country, and moving into the most highly populated part of the country. Sometimes it takes knowing you are going to lose something soon to realize how much it meant to you in the first place. That is if you are lucky. Sometimes, you dont realize it until it is too late. On the last leg of my journey, I am keeping this fact in mind. I am stretching out every minute and taking it all in, because I will never be here, now, ever again.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:00:59 +0000
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