One Year Later: I've Forgotten All About You

One year ago today, I watched the sun rise over the rim of the Grand Canyon. It was the start of a road trip without limits. I had no idea when—or even where—it would end.

One year later, now settled in Charlotte for the last three months, I’m still thinking a lot about that road trip. A day doesn’t go by when the skyline of Chicago, the shores of Maine, or the volcanic waters of Crater Lake don’t flash like lightning inside my eyes.

I think a lot about me and my adventure, but I also think a lot about the people I found along the way—how I could never forget them.
And yet I do forget. In a strange, certain way, I forget all about them.

I’ve forgotten all about you.

There were my friends and family. There were faithful readers. There were totally random Couchsurfing folks. Each person contributed pieces to the continental puzzle of that road trip. I remain grateful for every couch, bed, coffee, meal, hike, and conversation. You changed me.

And yet, for all the drastic change I’ve experienced in the last year, I tend to forget that all of you have changed, too. Time didn’t stand still for you while I wandered for 282 days. You changed. You grew. Your stories took epic turns just as mine did.

Three engagements happened among people I met on the road—my own sister included. It’s a strange, joyous thing when someone commits a life to another, when two destinies begin their long merging.

I attended four weddings on the trip—count ’em, four—and another couple who hosted me were married soon after. Community and weddings became running themes, and I imagine many of those stories will surface in my eventual #RunningToBook (hashtag pending).

Five babies have been born—or will soon be born—to mothers I met along the way. That’s wild to me: five human lives that didn’t exist, now very much do.

A year beyond the canyon, I’m struggling to find meaning and purpose in stability, while these little humans are entering the planet struggling to sleep and stand and crawl. Someday they’ll struggle in classrooms and beyond those walls. They’ll learn and change and grow—just as I have, and just as you have, too.

Amid the angsty work of reestablishing a life without motion, I’m sorry for forgetting about you and your own epic journeys—marriages and parenthood and travels and wanderings of your own.

Recently, I scrolled through my contacts and reminisced over our shared time together. I miss it. I miss you.

Today I’m reminded that a great story is bigger than a single road trip—or even a single lifetime. Our individual stories intersect and collectively produce something beautiful. I hope I can offer something as meaningful to your story as so many of you offered to mine.

Here’s to the continued journey—weddings and babies, standing and crawling, struggling and learning, staying the same and changing, fresh starts and all.

If we met on my #RunningTo road trip, share a story from our time together—or tell me how you’ve changed in the last year. Where were you then, and where are you now?