The epic journey has come to a close. I’m going to offer a few different kinds of reflection and summary posts of this trip.

Here’s one for the statisticians and the summarizers among you.

I think it was the Nagoski sisters, in their book Burnout, who talked about the surprising realization that what mid-life crises look like for women tends to be very different from the masculine stereotype of sportscar-buying, younger-women-dating, burning-down-the-bridges. Instead, it comes as a questioning of what we’re prioritizing for ourselves and an examination of how we want to feel/how we’re not feeling that we can change.

As this trip comes to a close, I’m thinking about how I want to write about it in some larger way. What are you interested in hearing about from my 2+ months around the USA?

I took my friends out to the Western Slope of Colorado, returning to the area I last left behind in December 2020 after resigning from the job that I’d moved out there for just before the pandemic hit in a globally massive way.

It’s going to take me a while to untangle and peruse through all the feelings this brought up.

After Capitol Reef today and Kanab before that, and the glorious afternoon hike along Calf Creek in Escalante, I’ve been soaking up the awe-inspiring geology for a while now. I’ll be sad to leave it behind, but there’s part of me that’s looking forward to heading home to see how the next phase goes.

Between this and Monument Valley, the Navajo Tribal Parks are where it’s at: best managed, best crowd control, clearest visitor policies, and best decision making that puts the preserved land first.

I’ve officially turned Eastward and bid the Pacific Ocean farewell. I’m happy to be leaving the city behind for the next week and heading out to the desert and mountains again. I’m feeling sad to shift phases of this trip to one that’s promising fewer friends to see. And I’m excited to be on my own in nature again.

I like serendipity, and sometimes it happens best when I loosen the reins and welcome in whatever comes my way. It’s one of the easiest ways for me to be present in the moment, when these little bonus things happen.

I hope this trip can continue to help me embrace the undefined time. The trip is bringing me joy and discovery and connection, and I’ve let go of much of my natural organizing drive. May that serve as a model for life writ large. Undefined and evolving is where I need to be right now.

I’ve done so much that I feel like I’ve been here a long time, even though it’s only been a week, and I’m very satisfied by the eclectic combination of sightseeing and eating and wandering and people-visiting and museum-going I’ve done here.

I’m also feeling the pull to get out of the city again.