I have no idea what I am thinking. It consumes every second of unused processing power of my mind. The voices of self-doubt scream a message of failure, insecurity, and fear among other things into a willing ear. I have begun to experience strong confirmation bias in the everyday humdrum monotony life has become for me. I don’t know why, but I know I must. It’s a scary undertaking and like most things, that means it is exciting.
What is it, you ask? The TAT. The Trans America Trail….by motorcycle.
My motorcycling buddies know all too well what that is. Some may not. The TAT is an ocean-to-ocean route across the United States using backroads including trails, dirt roads, farm paths, goat tracks, and all manner of two lane blacktop short of highways. It’s tough. Done at a reasonable pace, it takes three to four weeks. This leads me to the source of the majority of my anxiety.
In my line of work, there is no provision for a month off short of FMLA. I cannot see reasoning with my boss needing more than a month off to settle the inner battle I am having facing middle age. It’s a classic crisis and these sorts of things tend to not be interesting business conversations. So….I’ll be leaving my job. The classic I-quit-my-job-to-ride-my-motorcycle story. It’s certainly not a unique story. Plenty of hapless souls have done it and survived, their lives only set back insignificantly.
I’m scared. What happens on the other end of the country? What happens if my beautiful and understanding wife decides my little crisis is simply a selfish stunt and stops understanding? Can I live with myself if I let her down? Can she live with me if I don’t give in to the unrelenting desire to “do this?”
I have been pretty difficult to live with of late. I’m always exhausted. Even when I wake, I am weak, in pain, tired, caffeine addicted, and likely intolerable. I’m essentially sedentary…something I have really never been. I’m tired. Boy, am I tired. I work the graveyard shift. I have considered changing shifts, but I want the break. So I’m going to take it and do something I soon won’t be able to do again…at least not anytime soon. Who knows? The TAT may not be around once I retire. And, speaking more to my “crisis,” I may not be around either. We are not promised tomorrow, much less twenty more years.
It scares me to death. The insecurity….not the death.
I have already begun preparations. It’s looking like a solo trip and I think I like it that way. It adds to both the anxiety and the excitement. I’m accustomed to solo travel. I’m comfortable inside my own head. I’m experienced at being away from home for extended periods. I spent my formative adult years behind the wheels of big trucks. I’ve seen the entire lower 48 and been in four provinces of Canada. I’ve been everywhere, man. But, it was on someone else’s schedule and time.
If it turns out this notion and its execution ruins my life, I want to at least have used the experience to create something. It has been a long time since I felt creative and it is a feeling I miss.
I invite you to join me during the preparations and sooner than I’ll likely be prepared for, the journey itself. If nothing else you, the reader, can live vicariously through me and enjoy the folly of a middle-aged man on the ride of his life.