Chapter 13

The next morning he left Kentucky, feeling like he had somehow internalized something that he was supposed to have experienced. He was feeling better now, but still knew he was a long way from being okay. What he had lost could not be replaced, and right now he was still trying to find reasons to keep on going. The road had been an interesting and even enlightening distraction, but sooner or later he knew was going to have to face his life again.

Looking at his map, he decided he would head towards the Grand Canyon for his next adventure. He had worked there as a kid just out of college, and during that time had one of the truly transcendent moments of his life at the bottom of the canyon in the dead of night. Emotionally and spiritually, he felt like he was again in the dead of night, and it couldn’t hurt to retrace his steps again.

He spent most of the day driving, and felt a kind of odd sadness as he crossed the Kentucky border into Arkansas. Something about the hills and the colors and the people he had met had been healing, and he once again felt on unfamiliar ground as he continued to venture to the west.

He decided he would stop in Memphis for a few days, as that town had also been a part of his somewhat checkered past before he had become a psychologist. He remembered his days there walking up and down Beale Street drinking beer and listening to music, and right now that seemed like a welcome distraction. He was regressing, he knew that, but the thought didn’t particularly bother him right at this time.

As he drove, he found himself remembering a quote from Richard Bach, and pulled over to the side of the road to find it on his phone. It read,

“Anyone desperate enough for suicide...should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.”
He though about this as it related to his own life, and reflected on how his current adventure may be related. He felt like he was bound by nothing, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to stick around either.

A couple of hours later he was checking in to the world famous Peabody hotel, a place he normally would not have stayed at, but somewhere he was happy to spend the money on given his current situation. He arrived right as the Duck Walk was going on, a ritual in the hotel where Ducks marched in unison in and out of the hotel’s fountain that was situated in the lobby. Somehow the Ducks always knew right where to go. John chuckled to himself and hoped, somehow, that the same idea was true of him.

He looked out of his room on the 12th floor. The city had a genteel southern charm, and John felt himself getting excited about eating some of the BBQ and getting lost in some Blues music for the evening. Music had always been a source of great comfort for him, even in the days of his darkest and loneliest periods of depression. He was in one the best cities in the world to get lost inside of music, and he looked forward to revisiting a sad and fond memory from his past life.

He slept for a few hours before tackling the town, and had a dream about his farm that he hadn’t had since he had met his wife and started his new life with she and their daughter. It was a recurring dream from his childhood, where he was wandering alone on his grandparent’s farm, looking for someone to play with him. He had processed the dream as a patient in therapy, and had spent countless hours wondering what it might mean. He eventually concluded that the dream reflected a powerful desire to be close to others and to also feel a sense of safety while seeking this closeness.

Now he was the owner of the farm, and he had made his dream come true when he had married his wife Stephanie and adopted his daughter Kim. He had never had the dream again after he had found them, until now that is, and he woke up wondering if he was now back in the same psychological hole from which he started. Had he learned anything on his journey? Or was he destined to continue to struggle out of the dark and into the light for the rest of his days? He realized it was a morbid thought, but the dream had been far from comforting to him.