This recent week found me once again rushing around to get a bunch of things done in a timely manner, for no real reason. When you are in business for yourself the only motivator to keep you on track is the person wearing your clothes. If you choose to set a schedule and keep it full, so be it. If not, tomorrow is another day. When you work from home and the world around you is shut down, there has to be something more to keep us grounded and focused. An outlet, whereby each of us can sort through the intertwining confusion, frustration, and uncertainty of today and tomorrow. Yesterday I needed a break, so I took to the street for a 10-mile walk.

The temperature was over 90 degrees so clearly my head was not in the game fully from the start. Why anyone wakes and decides it to be a rational idea to head out onto the hot pavement for close to four straight hours up and down hills is beyond me. Some might conclude it was the decision of madman. I did it because I needed to, it was just that simple. At least I think so. My head for a number of consecutive days had been spinning like a rotor in an airplane engine. Constantly turning, but never fully shutting off. Everyone experiences this, my time was now.

It has been one truly strange summer. Nothing is normal, nothing is familiar, and nothing is expected. Each day recently, like so many other people, I spend more and more time wondering about tomorrow. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is. I tend to ponder the past quite frequently and benchmark it to where I am currently in my life. There is a unique story there, we all have one. Each of us has peaks and valleys to refer to when called upon. Twenty years from now, we will all have forged new highs and lows all over again. So it goes…

Two decades passed, I was certainly not the Aric you know currently. A case could be made too… even ten years ago I was a very different person. Had I spent time back then mapping out my next decade, it most certainly would have been in error. Though adversity has kicked my ass for most of my life, the last ten to twenty years have tested me beyond the realm of imagination. So much more, then I have ever shared on stage, privately or otherwise. As an author, you can’t even make this stuff up and attempt to put it on paper…for fear no one would believe it was all true. I keep the dark secrets within me but wonder about the next 20 years and if there shall be more coming my way. Hopefully not.

July typically is a very tough month for me for several personal reasons. It’s perplexing, because for a guy who was once extremely guarded and private at all times – more and more people know stuff about my life now, than ever. They know this is an annual rough one for me.

Twenty years ago, I never would have planned or forecasted for my current life to become a reality. But it is. Thankfully several outlets work perfectly for me to remain comfortable with it all. I chose to step into the light and share our journey. Not for me, but because hopefully, it can help other people relate, inspire, or to find some sort of lost hope in their lives once again. A 20-year window of life looks different to everyone. I offer my window for others to take a peek I guess.

Step by step I marched along the winding country road, as the searing heat from below blurred the horizon before me. With each foot in front of the other, the next twenty years to come became my focus as I slowly panted while also questioning what the hell I was doing out there. Is this how it all is supposed to go? Peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys, highs and lows and lows and highs? Certainly, we grow, learn, adapt, and change accordingly to whatever life has in store for each of us. In twenty years, what lays ahead? I ask but seek no answer, it is most assuredly forthcoming. God willing.

I sat briefly on a rock by a small cemetery in the shade just off to the side of the wooded road. A much-needed break from the madness of a ten-mile sweltering journey as feet burned beneath me. Stopping for a second to reflect, and then guzzle the final drops of liquid from my plastic bottle.

I wondered if any of us might have written our current life scripts with full accuracy twenty years ago.  I would highly doubt we could. Life won’t allow it to happen that way. Our existence is fluid without a set definitive structure. It is everchanging as it goes. It needs to be this way. What we make of it, in turn, better clarifies its course. In twenty years, where will any of us be? What new and wonderful riches from life shall be exposed and presented to us fully? Only destiny knows the answer. But each of us holds the motivation to seek it out.

I choose to believe my next twenty are going to absolutely remarkable. My mind says I have paid my dues in full, and it is time to reap new benefits from a life positioned well, to be re-explored. I bargained with myself; moving forward upon the conclusion of this walk, each daily step will have a new purpose. One of exploration, openness, understanding, and appreciation for all that surrounds me. What becomes of it all, only time will tell. But ask me in twenty years if I was correct in how I thought it may play out, and hopefully it will mirror my expectations.

Currently, the roads are still long and winding. Without any clear direction as to where they shall lead us. Hopefully, at some point, the peaks become more frequent and the valleys less steep. For now, if I can just make it up the next hill. I wonder what it will look like when I get there. There is only one way to find out.

It begins today…

Cheers…A