A Change of Scenery

I am getting pretty good at driving the road to my daughter's college and back. Having made the trip numerous times this year to catch her dance and theater performances, or to bring her home for vacations, I find myself almost on "automatic pilot" as I travel there and back. It's not the most exciting stretch of highway, but the trip isn't bad. If you were to pass my van you'd see me rocking out, singing at the top of my lungs on the way there. On the way back home, the time passes quickly as I listen to her stories.

It's actually been nice to have the excuse to run the roads this past year. Being on the road, traveling from one town to the next, even if it's on the highway, gets me out of the routine of traveling only from home to work on back roads that I've been traveling for nearly 20 years. I admit, there are days when I am tempted to take an alternative route and to run away for the day. "I needed a change of scenery", I could simply say when my boss asks me why I was not at work. Oh yes, I'm sure he'd understand.

A former colleague of mine who left the profession 13 years ago suggested to me then that I needed to take a chance and get out of my own rut. He was suggesting that I join him and leave teaching to try something different. When he ran into me a few years ago and realized I was still teaching, he was quick to frown a bit before catching himself. I think he really wanted to hear that I'd moved on to doing something else. Maybe he needed me to say that I had. Maybe it would have validated his own decision to leave? I don't know. But in either case, I do think of his words to me every once in awhile. I ask myself, "Am I in a rut?" and "What exactly does that mean to me anyhow?"

Sure, I have fantasies of running away--for a day, for a week, for a month, or longer. I am tempted to make an unexpected and maybe even irresponsible turn to see just where life might take me if I abandon what I have and where I am now. But I also know myself. When I don't know where I'm going, I end up in some pretty scary places. I get lost pretty easily. And one of my biggest fears is getting lost and not having anyone there to lead me back to the places and to the people that I love.

A change of scenery is good for the soul. Maybe I am in a rut. Maybe I need to take more chances. Do something different. Take a leap of faith. But as I mull this over I'll make sure that my GPS secures my home address. Because there is nothing here that I can live without.