Road Trip *aka I ran away.

This past week I had a few crucial decisions to make and instead of hanging around to face the problem, I ran away from them.  This is a direct contradiction to my only 13 day old resolution to Face My Fears.  But I don’t want to call it a failure because ….running away was exactly what I needed.   My problems aren’t solved but my head is clearer and my stomach is untangled from the tight knots that were collecting there.

It was a last minute decision to go.  The thought occurred to me on Thursday morning knowing it was an unlikely scenario though.  Who leaves with no where to go?   I decided late Thursday after having dinner with friends that I’d just do it.  Friday came, work was done, it was getting dark outside and I hadn’t even packed.  I didn’t have a place to stay or a true destination for the night but I had to get away. The gnawing in my gut from decision making was cutting through me.  I knew I’d end up Saturday in the Pheonix area, it’s somewhere I’d been wanting to do for a while and cancelled going twice last year, I just didn’t have any plans to get there.  Usually I’d have mapped out a route and decided all the plans ahead of time.  Planning is one of my favorite things but this trip I found myself on the road at 7pm and nothing ahead of me.  When I got tired of driving, I got on Priceline and booked the closest hotel.  It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon when the rain was pouring and my hiking goals were squashed that my heart slowed down a bit and I just enjoyed the scenery.

I ended up Friday night in Kingman, Arizona.  Saturday morning I woke up to rain so I had to cancel my Grand Canyon viewing and instead drove up highway 66 for awhile and then turned south on the Joshua Tree National Forest Highway to go to Scottsdale.  When I got there in the mid-afternoon I explored Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesan West.  The view was stunning from there and the rain was refreshing.  Then I found a room nearby and also enjoyed a boba.  That night a good friend noticed where I was from my Instagram post and told me she was in Pheonix too.  She was running the Rock and Roll Marathon and the finish line was 6 miles from where I was staying.  I got up in the morning and met her there.  We enjoyed the finish line festivities, had lunch and I headed home feeling a 1000 times better than when I left.

My problems were not resolved.  My life still has issues I’m currently trying to figure out.  But I was reminded why the best place for me work out any troubles are outside.  And what I discovered was the fear of the unknown was much more healing than I could’ve imagined.