Those who follow us know that every once in awhile I can go off  on one of my self-discovery narratives contemplating life, the length scale of quantum gravity or the zen art of tire rotation.  Well I’m overdue.

Driving is my meditation.  Lately I’m laying down 150 miles on my daily commute which provides a truck load of time to consider my life…  or at least how I’ve rewritten the history my life.

When I look back 20 years, I see a life seemingly foreign to me now. A rock-n-roll, party your ass off, hard drinking life style.  And when I say hard drinking, I don’t mean a calendar full of red solo cup, beer binging weekenders.  I mean years of scotch all night, every night black outs with tequila and nicotine for breakfast just to put me right, life style.

Like many twenty somethings, I lived as if there were no tomorrows and I paid no attention to the past.  I had all the answers. At least the answers to all the questions I cared to ask.  Bashfulness and insecurity hidden behind outrageousness and arrogance.  To me, my life made perfect sense: lust and adventure, my liver hanging by a thread and one foot over the ledge.

I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life in two words: “It Changes!”

These days I don’t drink. Unraveling the insecurities I worked so hard to hide, has lead me to a deeper sense of understanding.  Lust has been redirected into love and an appreciation of the joy and sorrow that accompanies it.  Through the past twenty some years of travel, friendships have anchored me in the present without having to give up the stories of my past.  I no longer believe I have all the answers, because I now ask better questions.

I understand adversity. I know failure. I still stumble but it does not define me.

My sense of adventure has matured like a fine single malt (I said I don’t drink…  I didn’t say it was easy).  I retained the courage to step outside of my comfort zone to explore what is different and unknown.  I’ve been richly rewarded on these journeys.

Everyone needs to have their wild years.  We all live in change.  I am a the result of what I bring forward from my past.  It shapes how I approach the future.  I’m living in the now, recalling the past and looking to the future.

The adventures I’ve had and those in front of me continue to drive my  lust of life and a quest for answers that can never be found, only searched for.

I never could have imagined my current life and who knows what this chapter will look like in the rear view, twenty years from now.  All I know is objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.