Powder Daze.

In life we are all creatures of organization. Since we were small children we are taught to makes plans, we have ideas, we make goals, we have desires, we spend most of our day daydreaming about what we want, what we want to be, where we want to be, what we want to see, what we want to have. We spend years building this mental path in our own minds and we feel guilt when we stray from the path. We feel  commitment to this ghost plan.

Until one day, one trip, one person, one song, one idea serves as a catalyst and changes everything. This one thing has the power to stop you dead in your mental track and wipes the entire track clean. It scares the shit out of most of us and we do not know what to do with ourselves. There are usually two choices that linger in this precise moment. One…..you can embrace the unknown and take a leap and create a new life, a new path, a new goal or none at all….simply live. Two, you can run unforgivingly back to the old path and commit fully to it, never to stray so intensely from it again and live a very structured and maintained lifestyle.

Well I have strayed. I think I have strayed for quite some time. And I will admit it’s frightening at times and highly stressful. I have my self doubts at times, but in the end the rewards are much higher than the risks.

Right now I am in Vail, Colorado. It’s 7 am and I am awake staring at the window of my apartment. There is fresh snow on the ground, icicles hanging ominously in my window; it is what we call a powder day. Fresh tracks are ready to be made and the mountain will be opening soon. I live here, I tell myself that every day, because it is still so unreal. I’m 26 and I have not a cent to my name, my car is almost at its wit end, I did not know a soul here and I am completely fulfilled and happy here. I am surrounded by 18-22 year olds that are out here on a break, or finishing up school and having one last ho-rah. But this is me, this is not a last anything or a first, there is no break, there is no looming plan. This is it, and after this…….no idea. This move is not a self actualizing period although it may turn out to be.

I used to be a planner. I used to be that career go getter. I strived for academic achievement and I gained it. I strived for success in the corporate world, and I gained it. But out of those achievements I did not find myself..... I just gained an experience. You know I have no idea what the future holds, I do not have a plan like I used to, I don’t have an idea of where or what I will be doing next year like I used to. But I will adapt to change and I will just enjoy the ride. And to be honest…..when you give up on ‘the path’ you’ll find that your life will somewhat make one of its own without even informing you.

It will be scary to find yourself alone in the forest searching for a marker, but that is when you will experience the most intense utopic experiences. They won’t happen unless your mind is open to them. So that’s where I will be but right now all that I plan on is fresh snow, walks down white train tracks, long rides up the gondola, cold days and runny noses, making exceptional Eskimo like connections in the cold, breaking icicles, having snow ball fights, making pb & j’s, and carving my way off the mountain everyday on my board. That is good enough for me, that is my world at the moment. It is perfect in fact.

Life is beautiful and inspiring when you drop everything and just allow your life to create itself. You’d be surprised how perfect the world is when you stop having expectations and allow yourself to experience what fate has in store for you. Those dreams that only you see, behind closed eyes, they aren’t always fictitious, sometimes their just life’s way of telling you to wander off the path for a bit………just do it.