belated resolution

I know it’s february, but, here’s your resolution-themed-blog a month late. I’ve only rewritten it like three times, and yes, I realize I should probably set up some kind of schedule given that the last time I popped one of these up here was in july of last year (oops). we’ll get there.

anyway, my resolution for 2022 was to go camping at least once a month, and in my twenty-nine years on this earth, I think this is the first time I have actually completed a new year’s resolution. in hindsight, 20/20 and sans-astigmatism, it was also the first time I made a resolution with the intention just for fun. not trying to change, or quit something. I literally made this my resolution because I wanted to give myself an obligation to do something that made me happy every month, and that prioritized something that feeds my soul.

and here’s the thing. what a year it was.

it started with a quick trip to sedona, and it only got better from there. I guess it’s kind of becoming tradition to start my year off with a cross-country trip. because this time last year I was on my way from CA to VB. I landed in new mexico the second week of february and got to revisit taos in winter, and made my first trip to roy, where we woke up to four inches of snow that turned our climbing trip into a chill-by-the-fire-all-day kind of trip.

and what’s funny, is that I’m realizing as I’m writing this, that I have started to approach camping with the same mentality as I did running. in that, I will send it in the most absolute bullshit weather. like, I love being out there so much that it doesn’t matter if it’s 14 degrees outside as long as I can wake up next to a river gorge or at the base of snow-capped mountains. it’s like the suffering isn’t really suffering, because, adrenaline, and, little compares to waking up and having coffee by the fire in a space like that.

I recently had the chance to grab coffee with my writing mentor, and we were kind of talking about this -- the capacity to suffer. that, and how there’s essentially this acceptable threshold of being into something, before the average person thinks you’ve gone overboard, but that those of us who really dive into our obsessions tend to find each other, and connect on a baser, more deep level. we also tend to be artists, in some way or another.

and I think that’s the gist of it. I think the compulsions are similar, in that way. the compulsion to make art, and the compulsion to do the thing that stokes that fire inside you, are effectively the same. and in a lot of cases, the one informs the other. or at least that’s how it’s been for me.

so ultimately, that’s how I found myself building out my RAV4 to give myself a taste of vanlife (and shocker, I’m sold, and cannot wait for the opportunity to build out a van) and driving across the country (& back) thrice this past year. it’s how my book tour turned into a climbing tour with two of my best friends as we trekked from bishop to salt lake city, to maple canyon, aspen, and boulder, tackling the misadventures as they came. and it’s how I’m here now, planning my trip back home to california, looking for some more sites to add to my notes app list of beautiful places to wake up off of I40.

I’ve lost sight of the point of this whole thing, aside from one, find your people, you know, the ones that just get it. and two, chase the thing that makes you jazzed to get up in the morning. the thing that makes your jaw drop with awe. we only get this one life (that we’re conscious of, anyway) and we spend far too much time not taking advantage of the whims and spontaneous opportunities.

I’m tired of what ifs. 2023 is gonna be the year of why the hell not.