Chapter 19

He spent most of the afternoon thinking about the things he had repeated in his life, and wondered if he was learning things or if he was instead like an etch-a-sketch which kept getting erased every time someone shook it up a little. He was after all on the road, drinking heavily, and living with no sense that he had any kind of responsibility to other people. He thought about his patients back home and what they must be thinking right now, and hoped they would understand. He was in a place right now where he was not sure he should be in charge of anyone’s mental health, as his own hung precariously in the balance.

     On the other hand he realized that the moments of pain in his life had also been the most instructive, and he kept a glimmer of hope that this could also perhaps be one of these times. He was experiencing pain like he had never known before, but he also was surviving, one precarious day at a time. He was fairly certain he wanted to hang around for a little while longer despite all of the painful feelings he was working through.

     As he entered into Texas, he once again began to see the signs for the Big Texan, and he smiled and remembered the first time he had made this trip. He was 22 and it was when he first started entertaining the idea of being a writer. He searched his memory and remembered a short story he had written during that time period about a lost soul traveling around the country after having his heart broken. It was strangely prophetic, as a lot of things in his life had been, and he had always been a believer in looking for and evaluating signs. What had he learned since that first story?

     For one he had, at least for a season in his life, loved well. He remembered a kind of longing to feel something like that when he was a younger man, but he instead had spent the next decade drinking, chasing women, and generally avoiding any kind of commitments. He now realized this whole period of his life was an attempt to avoid pain, which he knew as a psychologist was almost the surest way of finding it. All of life came with some kind of price tag, and the bigger the reward, the bigger the jeopardy. Love was absolutely the most dangerous yet rewarding pursuit, and right now he couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it. It was so fleeting.

     As he thought about all of these things he pulled over to look up a quote Victor Frankl on the subject, as he needed a little inspiration. The quote read, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." 

     Frankl had always been an inspiration to him, as his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” had been one of the first things he had read that had drawn him towards psychology. He thought about the power of choice and how it related to his own life right now and where it might be headed. People had counted on him, regardless of his own feelings about the world and his larger place in it. He had gotten many letters over the years from former patients who had written to him and told him these very things. Some of these letters were the only fuel that had kept him going in his darkest days.

     As he got closer to Amarillo, he thought about resilience and some of the ways he had accessed this over the course of his life. He had always advocated for the idea that a sense of humor was a person’s greatest asset in making emotional choices, and now he decided it was time for him to practice what he preached. He found himself pulling into the Big Texan to relive an old memory and once again see if he could take on a 72-ounce steak. He was sure it would at least be good for a smile, and right now that was exactly what he needed. 

Chapter 18

      As he left Memphis, he felt a slight pang of regret. He had made a real human connection there, and found that rather surprising given his current emotional state. He knew people needed other people, even when, and perhaps especially when, they were at their worst. Still it wouldn’t have been something he would have predicted for himself. 

     As he crossed the Tennessee state line, the song “Tangled up in Blue” by Bob Dylan came on, and he took it as a kind of a sign. He had loved the song since he was a teenager, and for a moment stopped to consider why that was. It was a rambling, confusing song, but at its core seemed to be about a man searching for a lost love of his. As a kid he had always wondered if he would ever love someone like that, and now, years later, he had his answer. The difference was he couldn’t find his missing girl no matter how hard he looked. All he could do was chase memories of her.

       He turned up the song as it came to an end, fixating on the last verse and thinking again about the parallels to his own life, he listened to Dylan sing’

 “So now I'm going back again
I got to get her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't what they're doing with their lives
But me I'm still on the road
Heading for another joint
We always did feel the same
We just saw it from a different point of view
Tangled up in Blue.

          It described exactly how he felt right now. Completely jumbled up in a sea of melancholia while also searching for something elusive. Oddly, it wasn’t the worst feeling in the world.

     He took a look at his map, and suddenly felt a strange compulsion to reach Amarillo Texas on the next journey of his trip. He remembered stopping there when he was in his early twenties on a long trip home to the state of Washington from New Orleans. He was running out of money after visiting an old flame down there, and saw advertisements for the “Big Texan,” a 72 ounce steak that they served in a restaurant in Amarillo if you could finish the entire steak in an hour. He was sure at the time he could do it, and he was wrong. The steak ended up costing him like 75 bucks, which left him coasting in on fumes by the time he finally made it back home.

     He laughed at the memory, while also remembering that it was the pursuit of then loss of a woman that had sent him on that excursion as well. Once again he was repeating a familiar pattern, and he thought again about the larger implications. Perhaps he was a modern version of Sisyphus, doomed to push a rock up a hill for the rest of his life, only to have it continually fall back down to the bottom.

     He spent most of the afternoon driving through the state of Oklahoma, where it seemed he went hours without seeing another human being. He found himself thinking about one of the last clients he had seen before the accident, and how he had described a fear of “disappearing” when he went days at a time without human interaction. John had been oddly touched by the revelation, and now, for the first time, he truly got a sense of what the man had meant. He pinched his skin and looked in the rear view mirror, trying to get some proof that he himself wasn't disappearing. 

Chapter 17

    The next morning John woke up entangled in arms he didn’t recognize, and felt an odd pang of loss. It was in this very scenario that he first woke up with his future wife, and, looking over and seeing the pretty journalist, he felt the painful realization that he would never wake up with her again.  He shook the cobwebs out of his head and remembered that he and Amy had retired to his room to continue their conversation about love, and had would up agreeing to fall asleep together. It was an odd and empty consolation prize considering the life he had only recently experienced.

     For a moment John once again channeled his cosmic time-traveler, and remembered how he and Stephanie had also woken up in a fog, and how what followed were the most surprising and even miraculous events of his life. He knew instinctively that this would never happen to him again, but still, having experienced the impact of a lightening strike the first time, he left himself open to the idea that he had something to learn here.


“So, are we going to be weird this morning or are we going to be friends,” Amy said as she laughed.


“Weird. Weird for sure,” John said as he smiled, while also realizing it was the first time he had truly laughed since he first heard the news that would change his life.


“Well, okay then. As long as we’re on the same page. I’m a journalist buddy. We’re supposed to drink like this, but honestly I’m a little worried about you. So how long do you think this Bourbon tour of yours is going to go on?”


“You know I was just thinking about that. Somehow I feel like I have learned all I was supposed to learn from Memphis on this particular spin. I was actually thinking of heading to the Grand Canyon if you can believe that. I worked there when I was 22 and I kind of wanted to see what has changed.”


“Still a big Canyon bud. Has been since before you and I were here and will be long after we are gone. I have to admit I’m becoming a little fascinated by this little tour of yours. You remind me a little bit of some kind of genius Peter Pan. Know what the first line of that book is? “All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.” Sounds a lot like the things you write about if you ask me.”

“Interesting you say that,” John replied. “I find myself thinking about and ruminating on what Nietzche called eternal return all the time. What if we just have to keep doing this all over again? Is it worth the pain? The loss? If so, maybe being an adventurous nomad is the way to go. Just be some kind of stone that keeps rolling without picking up any kind of moss. I don’t know. For a sacred moment in my life I didn’t believe that at all. Now I can’t fathom wanting to feel this kind of pain over again.”


“Well I tell you buddy, I’m not sure I can ease your pain, but I do get this strange feeling I’m going to be seeing you again. I have to admit I’m actually feeling a little more hopeful after spending a little time with you, depressing as you are. I’m going to leave you with my card, and I hope you’ll call me sometime. One fellow traveler to another. Maybe we can help each other out in some way.”

As John watched her gather her things and head for the door, he shook his head and smiled at her bravado. In another life he would have wanted to know a lot more about her, but for now he knew it was time to get out of Memphis and continue on his journey. He grabbed her card and put in his wallet, and thought about Peter Pan as he started to pack up and get ready to hit the road. 

Chapter 16

"The thing is Amy, and since you asked specifically if that has been my experience, I’ll tell you something important that I have learned. Love is everything in life. The pursuit of riches, fame, adventure, whatever, are all secondary reflections of a person’s pursuit of love. I know that because I am living it. My wife died a few weeks ago and I can tell you without equivocation that she was the most powerful force in my life, and there really hasn’t been a close second. I’ve spent my life as a writer looking for the Rosebud moment in people’s lives, but now I’m rethinking all of that."



“Well John, I have to tell you, having recently come out of a very bad relationship, that sounds both inspirational as well as kind of unreal. Personally I’ve come to a place where I’ve kind of given up on the idea of romantic love. It just seems like it ends up hurting too much. I must admit though, my research has taken me in another direction, and talking to you may shed even more light on this question. Are you saying you believe in soulmates or something like that?”

“I never did Amy, believe me. I spent the first 38 years of my life as cynical and fearful about love as any person I have ever met. I just kind of stopped thinking anything like that could happen to me. Then, on one strange day not unlike many others in my life, everything changed. I can’t really explain it except that it was like being struck by an emotional thunderbolt and from the first day I met her, everything was different.”

“Well tell me about the thunderbolt. Do you think this emotional connection is about being drawn to the missing parts of yourself? Or are you suggesting it is something bigger than that? Some kind of cosmic and mystical connection? I’m a journalist and I want to understand. Understand why it is so many truly great people talk about love like this, while others like me seem to flounder around in the dark. What, in your experience is the answer?”

“I guess a part of it goes back to what the Buddhists say, “when the student is ready the teacher appears.” That is my psychologist answer anyway. I know for me personally I had failed at love so many times that I wasn’t even really looking anymore, so I’m not sure that totally explains it. I think you’re partially right when you talk about it as being drawn to missing parts of yourself, only I would take that one step further. It’s like being drawn to something that you didn’t even know was missing and therefore had no point of comparison. The closest I can come to explaining it is feeling totally understood by someone. Understood in a way that goes beyond words and conversation.”

“That does sound nice, I admit, but I’m still not convinced. Maybe I’ll know it when I see it someday. But in the meantime I’m going to have another drink. Will you be joining me?"