It’s Been One Hell of a Year: A Look Back at Our 2023

A look back at 2023, a milestone year for me, for Bev, probably for the dogs as well.

Days after the first of the year, back in January, we sold our house.  It took all of three days, all of one couple to look at it.  With a departure date, for the Pacific Crest Trail adventure, of February 2, we basically had one month to clean the house, move out of the house, purchase a bus, retrofit the bus, and take care of a thousand little details associated with a monumental life-changing.

Once the decision was made to do all of that, the house-selling and the trail-hiking, to our credit we never looked back.  Not once did we lay awake at night debating, worrying, playing the what-if game . . . it was just balls to the wall and let’s get going with this grand trek.

In truth, we were both ready for a change of that magnitude.  I sense we were both bored to death with our lives at that point, just killing time in the Game of Life until there would no longer be time to kill.  We were probably slightly bored with each other, too, in that way old married couples who have spent most waking moments together feel like they are stuck in a perpetual rerun of Ozzie and Harriet, my apologies to those of you not old enough to understand that reference.

We needed a change.

We left, to the best of my recollection, on February 2^nd, and for six months Bev chased her dream and I lived mine.  The dogs?  Adjusted remarkably well; as long as they had at least one of their humans nearby, they were fine.

We saw a super bloom in the desert, more flowers than I thought possible in a dry, God-forsaken landscape. We saw snow in the desert. We saw storms form over the Pacific Ocean, clouds rising so very high, colors changing almost by the second, the full force of Nature’s ferocity on display, literally rocking Puddle Walker, giving us a sense of our real level of security in this thing called life.

We saw mountain towns, we saw desert towns, we saw farming towns, valley towns, and metropolises so large we could not fathom the numbers, wall to wall humanity, frightening and awe-inspiring at the same time.  We saw towns on the rise, towns in decline,  people on the rise, and people in decline, and not once, fathom this for a moment, in over ten-thousand miles, did we feel fear.

We saw acts of compassion we thought no longer existed.  We saw strangers helping strangers with no hope or thought of payment.  We saw strangers trusting strangers, fragile and frail, exhausted and almost defenseless, willing to accept rides from people they did not know, accept food from people they did not know, at the mercy of people they knew nothing about, and time and time again, the trust rewarded by kind acts from people known, affectionately, as Trail Angels.

I rediscovered my love of this country, I rediscovered my love of driving long distances and living on the road.  I cemented the belief, in my psyche, that the life I left behind was a life I did not want to revisit, ever again.

Bev discovered that she loves the freedom the Trail provides and demands.  She rediscovered her love of the land, of nature, and the wonder she has always wanted to experience firsthand.  She found out she is capable of much more than she ever attempted before, and she got her first taste of a life she is excited to develop.

The dogs? As long as their humans are close by, they are fine.

It was a year of incredible excitement . . .

where each day seemed to be filled with possibilities which would be realized, but it was also a year of crashing back to Earth as the journey ended, and planned follow-ups were put on hold because of a failing transmission.  On the PCT, they talk about the readjustment period following the completion of spending six months on the Trail; I would add to that the readjustment period for those who followed hikers on the road, resupplied them, and participated, secondhand, in the wondrous adventure.  It was very hard for me to return to Olympia, and it is still hard for me, five months later, to be here, in place, reluctantly settling into a passive lifestyle.

It was a year which convinced me that I’m not quite dead yet, to borrow from Monty Python, that I still have holy shit things I want to do with my life, and it was a year which strengthened my resolve to experience the hell out of this thing we blithely call living, even though some of us were just going through the motions for decades.  I have given myself permission to dream again, and to investigate and actually chase those dreams.  I may fail; hell, I probably will.  But I would rather go down in flames, from that chase, a modern day Icarus, than die from boredom, insecure and afraid of taking risks.

Just in the last few weeks I have reached out and formed new friendships, or strengthened existing friendships, and I want to continue to do that, to cement bonds with like-minded people, people of depth and resolve. I won’t name names here, but they know who they are.  If I had a regret, which is something I do not allow, it would be that most of those new friends are so far away, and actually speaking to them, in person, as friends do, over coffee, sharing smiles in close proximity, may not ever happen.

But one can hope; without hope, without dreams, without compassion and empathy, what are we, really?

It was a year I straightened my spine, stood tall, and found new faith in myself.  My writings may not be read by many; my videos may not be seen by many; but that does not mean they are not worth doing, and I will continue to create because, well, I think it’s important that creativity never dies as the result of being ignored.  I may be an introvert, I may not socialize well, but I have value, and I am living my life on my terms and, quite frankly, people would benefit knowing me. I hope they find that out for themselves.

Finally, it was a year when I inched closer to finding my True Self, and that is a game-changer.  I am an empath and, although it can be painful, at times, to be sensitive and in tune with the emotions of others, I love that I have that ability deep within me. I would rather give a damn than pretend I do but actually don’t.  I do not need any one person to make me happy, but I am happy having people in my life . . . in moderation, of course. I need quiet to charge my internal batteries, and I give myself permission to take quiet breaks, just for me.

It was, to put it mildly, an incredible year of personal growth for me.

What’s going to happen in 2024? Damned if I know, but I am beyond excited to find out.

And I hope you join me. You all reading this are my extended family. This adopted kid, a survivor of the foster system, can’t think of a nicer extended family, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  May we meet one day, as old friends should.