Leaving the life behind

One of the hardest things I’ve been thinking about is what it will be like once I leave behind the life I’ve lived over the past decade and a half since I graduated college. One of regular trips in the wilderness, spent camping under the stars, biking and swimming in the Potholers. Big Red and the many trips I’ve taken with him over the years. Trips to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Finger Lakes. I knew that some day those days would be coming to an end, and it really started to set in last year. I’m not only bored with travel, I’m ready for some persistence in life, not three night adventures that serve as escape from reality.

Escapism in life has its thrills. I mean that’s why people take vacations. But when you base your life around escape, is it really a life? If things are so awful in your every day situation that you’re only focus is maximizing investments and retirement funding towards a better tomorrow, is that really a way to live a life? When all you really care about is the next time you can get out of town, as you hate your dumpy apartment and being stuck in the city. I want to live a life based on reality rather than escape.

The truth is camping isn’t as much fun as it is once was since I quit the hard drinking and the unhealthy eating of junk food like hot dogs and cookies. Since I’ve run out of new places to explore and new things to do. The sameness of things has proven incredibly boring as they aren’t making much new state land. Things don’t change that much as you go to the same state forest over and over. The roads remain the same, even if they are more built up now with more solar facilities and housing built up along the shoulders.