The Purpose of A Road Trip
Remember that road trip – the one where you and your friends decided you’re finally going to see and experience the great things you’ve only heard or read about. I took mine through Europe. We started in Hungary, passed through Austria, northern Italy, and on to Germany and Paris. We awed over the Swiss alps and were stunned organized and clean everything in Austria really is. Italian ice cream really does hold its own above all others, and being able to marvel at structures that predated the term BC left us speechless. We sped on the Autobahn and tried our best at a pitiful mixture of all the languages we could remember.
Being an avid writer I am always surprised to look back over my journals from that time and find very few entries. As I think back, I immediately remember why. It was simply too much. Regardless of how much time I would spend writing, I just couldn’t do justice to all the experiences. How many words would it take to truly describe the smell of all the pastries, the breathless childlike awe at all the beauty, the unbelievable conversations with strangers in foreign languages, the constant fidgeting in front of the perfect blue-eyed guy who carried my luggage on the train? Almost every moment was a bittersweet mixture of leaving a now endeared place or person and looking forward to the next unforeseen adventure. Whether at the stunning effect of what had just happened or the anticipation of another incredulous escapade, I vividly remember the constant feeling of excitement and wonder.
Why Would You Want To Stop?
But imagine if I would have gone on this trip grudgingly and scared of each mile marker we passed. What if I would have been petrified of reaching the next city so I was constantly arguing that we should just stop. Preposterous you think? Nonsensical? Self-defeating? I think so too. Yet that is exactly how we treat our lives. Time is our Autobahn, and passing years, much like mile markers, tell us that we are on the right journey, going in the right direction, giving us hope of reaching the next great adventure and eventually getting home. Yet, somehow, in our society, the word “aging” is banished. We have anti-aging creams, youth serums, and age-defying make-up. We glorify youth and equate getting older to physical, professional, and social failures. We have convinced ourselves to fear he next mile-marker, not even whisper the name of the next city we will be visiting, and go through life insisting that we are proud to be stagnant on the side of the road. Preposterous you think? Nonsensical? Self-defeating? I think so too.
The sense of excitement and wonder that is so prevalent in my memories of my road trip would have never existed if I feared every mile marker, wishing they would slow or stop all together. We would have not seen anything, not met anyone, not headed toward the next place where we can eat or sleep or learn. We would have just stubbornly stayed on the side of the road wishing for accomplishments and experiences we refuse to reach. That would not be a trip, nor would it be a life – it would be constant stagnation in fear. We would have never seen the wonders of Paris if we hadn’t left Austria and kept driving.
Getting Older Has A Bad Reputation
Many of my friends and I are turning 40 this year and we have grown very tired of reading things like “40 and still fabulous”, as if the simple fact that we finally reached this mile-marker has made us “not fabulous”. I googled “aging” and pulled up countless articles about the concerns, preventions, and anti-aging techniques. REALLY? Just because being a teenager might have been easier than getting my masters degree while caring for my children, there is some inherent greater good in just being a teenager? Just because my grandmother’s hands are significantly more wrinkled than mine, hers are less beautiful? Going back to my road trip, just because walking the sidewalks of Hungary was so much easier that hiking the Swiss Alps, is better to stay on the sidewalks and go no further?
Ok so maybe I cannot stay up two nights in a row and be just fine anymore, but I can write that paper in half the time so I don’t have to stay up both nights. Perhaps I now have more wrinkles around my eyes, which for some unfounded reason has been deemed to be less beautiful, but I also have more hours of laugher and sun-filled days to remember than the less wrinkled me. And perhaps climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower isn’t as easy as eating ice cream in Italy, but I got to the top of the Eiffel Tower!
Getting Older Is Wonderful
The self-defeating obsession with youth that has so imbrued our society is not only a well-propagated lie but also a thief of life. Life is defined by movement, growth, and adaptation to new experiences. This is what distinguishes living organisms from inanimate objects. Celebrating another birthday, developing another wrinkle, making a new friend, loosing an old one, finding my first white hair, or being called mom for the first time – these are the infinite wonders of life actively unveiling. Getting older is literally wonderful – it is filled with wonder. Why would anyone trade that for stagnation?
There is another side to fearing new mile markers: the feeling that you have not accomplished enough between them. For example, you do not fear midterms because you endlessly wish more time to pass in the same class or in the same chapter. No, you fear midterms because you have not done all you needed to do until their arrival. So when mile markers also represent midterms, like turning 40, they are necessary to motivate you to become the person you want to be at graduation. They are there to push you to accomplish the things you deem important. These are checkpoints which allow us to evaluate who we are and who we want to be, and to begin again with a renewed purpose and hope.
Aging With Wonder & Excitement
I’m excited to be here today and to turn 40 this year. I feel a sense of wonder creeping up on me. The thought that I will get to experience things I’ve never done, go to places I’ve never seen, and uncover parts of me and others I’ve never discovered.
“For age is opportunity no less than youth itself, tho’ in another dress. And as the evening twilight fades away, the sky is filled with stars…invisible by day.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
So, my dear fellow travelers, do not fear mile markers. Rejoice that you are not stagnating on the road but purposefully driving to your next amazing adventure. Be grateful and attentive when faced with the question:
“This is your life, are you who you want to be?”
Allow this question to ensure that you show up at the next city prepared and that you finish the trip proud of whom you’ve become.
There is endless wonder, honor, and power in life that you can only experience by living. So do not stagnate. Drive eagerly towards the next city. Smile at the mile markers with a nod of satisfaction for the sweet memories of the past and the exiting possibilities of the future. It is a life worth living, so do it well!
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