This winding, endless network of backroads is mocking me. Once, it called to me with the promise of adventure and the solace of solitude. But now, as the weight of illness bears down on me, it feels more like an endless path to nowhere. The strength that once fueled my wanderings has been siphoned away, leaving me hollow and adrift.
Yesterday, I dared to set out again, thinking perhaps the open air would chase away the shadows lurking in my lungs. The sky was a pale expanse, and the wind carried with it a hint of chill. I should have heeded the signs, but stubbornness has always ridden shotgun while my better angels haggle for the choice seat. By nightfall, I paid for my hubris with torturous bouts of coughing, each one tearing through me like a tempest. I spat up god-knows-what from the depths of my lungs, remnants of some internal battle I was losing.
Stubbornness has always ridden shotgun
while my better angels haggle for the choice seat.
There's a peculiar loneliness that comes with being unwell on the road. The vastness that once brought comfort now amplifies the isolation. Weakness seeps into my bones, and with it, an insidious insecurity. I am a solitary figure against an indifferent horizon, yearning for the strength I once took for granted. The stars above, which once whispered secrets and possibilities, now seem cold and distant, their light unable to pierce this heaviness that envelops me.
I find myself longing for a quiet corner, a place to crawl into and hide until this affliction passes. The idea of seeking help tugs at the edges of my mind. Clinics and doctors bring thoughts of sterility and the clinical detachment of strangers probing at vulnerabilities I'd just as soon keep hidden. Yet, a voice within tells me that this might be a path I cannot avoid for much longer. (And it’s also the voice of my wife, half scolding, half imploring me to get some medical first aid…)
The road teaches many lessons, and perhaps this is another—to recognize one's own frailty and the need to lean on others, even when every instinct resists. The thought unsettles me. I've always found solace in self-reliance, in the quiet conversations between a man and the world he traverses alone. But now, each step feels heavier, each mile a testament to diminishing resolve.
The sky is painted with hues of gold and crimson, a fleeting beauty
that offers a momentary reprieve from my discomfort.
As I sit by the roadside, the dust settling around my cheap Walmart trail boots, I watch the sun dip below the distant rolling hills in the “just inside Kansas” small town of Wamego. The sky is painted with hues of gold and crimson, a fleeting beauty that offers a momentary reprieve from my discomfort. I realize that despite the vastness around me, I am but a small part of this world, subject to its whims and frailties.
Perhaps tomorrow I will find the courage to seek the help I need. To admit that strength sometimes lies not in endurance alone, but in the willingness to face one's own limitations. For now, I will rest and let the quiet of the night wrap around me, hoping that sleep will bring some relief.
The road will remain, stretching onward, a silent companion to my journey. And maybe, when I am whole again, it will once more beckon with the promise of discovery, and the weight of this sickness will be nothing more than a distant memory left behind with the fading dust.
And I apologize to every good editor I’ve ever had (that would be all three of you; you know who you are). This post could have been reduced to: “Being sick sucks… in every way.” But I am too tired and blurry-eyed to edit properly just now…