This post is the first in my “Every picture, every story” series detailing my 5 weeks of road trips in the summer of 2024. Some dates will be skipped, grouped, or abbreviated due to unrelated events happening on those days, such as conferences or extensive road travel.
This is me on May 31st 2024, minutes from departing on my 6,000-mile road trip across the United States to Arizona for 20 days. My smile masks the pain I caused others only a month before. In this photo, I’m remaining positive* – always with the asterisk.
On April 26, 2024, I exited an on-and-off relationship that had lasted just over two years. Like all relationships, there were good and bad times, healthy and toxic moments, compromises and the lack thereof. On that day, I broke up for the third and final time because I had long-decided I no longer wanted to be in the relationship, and the choices I was making were hurting me, my partner, her family, and others around us.
I’m not proud of how the relationship ended, let alone the fact that we devolved to a point where all meaningful and constructive communication broke down, and I refused to go to therapy when, in the past, I willfully and easily would. I could have made different decisions. I could have picked up the phone and gone to therapy. I could have spoken up and directly addressed the issues. But I didn’t. At some level, whether consciously or not, I was allowing the relationship to deteriorate.
I’m not proud to have done that. I’m someone who goes into the community and shares my boundless passion for science and astronomy, but in this, I would come home and have nothing to say, nothing to feel toward the person I was supposed to love.
Yes, we had extremely different schedules. Different goals in life. Different ways we wanted to spend evenings. Different perspectives on the work we did. But in the end, I chose to allow the relationship to wither.
I have other reasons beyond these, but I am, ultimately, the one who ended that relationship. No matter what was spoken, said, accused, or posted publicly, I feel my perspective and the choice I made are ultimately justified and beneficial to us both. I feel that had we continued, we would have been miserable, and I didn’t want to continue pulling her into the death spiral that had already taken my mind, emotions, and desire.
That brings me back to May 31st, 2024.
I set out on this road trip to Arizona to attend a science education conference, after which I traveled the state and visited some places for the first time, and others for the first time in more than a decade. I would cross Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and the smaller tip of Texas again before entering Arizona. I would visit National Parks, go on hikes that tested my physical limits, meet trail friends, make connections that have endured to this day.
But on May 31st, my smile masked the decisions and emotions that preceded the road trip. Though it would give me time, space, and peace to heal mentally and emotionally, I carried with me this unseen layer.
Alex
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