Year of the OX- Breathe Deeply Already

Happy Year of the Ox, ya’ll. As a person who is eager to move on from the train wreck that was 2008, I also am glad to say good-riddance to The Year of the Rat. Like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I simply can’t stand those No Good Dirty Rats.

Year of the Ox. No Bullshit. It started on Jan 26, 2009 and does not end until February 13, 2010. That means it is a long year, so it damn well better be a good one. Thus, it has “eyes” according to the Chinese, and as such is a year much influenced by the past and the future.

Ok, now think about that. I get it how we can all get caught up and influenced by the past- but how do you get influenced by the future? We-lll, maybe it just means you get to pick the tone of the future and set it to something you like. Like, say, Vintage trailers. Liberation from obligations you have outgrown.  Adios to Bad Jobs. Move towards the light. Open the Door to Opportunity…

Doors. I have been thinking a lot about closed doors. I think we have all spent some time in our lives standing in front of a closed door, staring at it in shock, rage or pain. Maybe just stunned. What I am finding is that if you can close your eyes long enough to step back, you may find that a few windows are open, or other doors to wildly different opportunities you might have missed had you locked yourself in the first situation. It is crazy how much we cannot see the variety of sprawling paths this life offers when we are convinced the One True Path has been denied to us.

But… what if our map to that door is out of date, or maybe we just plain got lost?

Yes. This IS trailer related. Basically, the trailer, the road, lay in my subconscious for many years as totally impractical and lost to me, when in fact, I was lost in my “responsibilities”.  I lost the connection to understanding that my “home” mentally, my sense of place and reality is something I can carry. I got landlocked and overwhelmed by my physical world. Lost in a high-paying, high-stress job. Letting fear intensify and deadening myself to the doubt and good common sense I was trying to drown out that kept trying to tell me, “Um, whoa, hold up: you just are not fun anymore, and that IS a problem”.  In short, I climbed a mountain so hell-bent on reaching the top that I forgot the whole point of the adventure in the first place.

Somehow, the tiny kindle of a flame would whisper to me, every so often “Hey, you need a road trip to get some perspective” and “Hey, just keep driving, man. Don’t take the turn home.” And “Why are you so freakin’ trapped???.  And, finally, the whole thing melted down and you know what? It still took  getting hit by a hurricane, 3 months of laying around like a beetle on my back and a random prop airplane ride for me to realize: I am trapped because I walked through a door and then locked myself in. Now, was it always a prison? No. Was it all bad? Absolutely not. But the point at which I could not see how to get out was the point at which the bars clicked shut and I stayed, panicking, more and more convinced that if I just white knuckled it out it would not matter that I had used up all the oxygen in the air.

So, to myself, I am deeply sorry. We were oxygen bankrupt for a few years before I figured it out. Git it- OXygen? Year of the OX. The time, the open road, the air to breathe and to rebuild your life: take it. The trailer, real or symbolically speaking, is about taking it with you. Paring down. Simplifying. Connecting to a better past and a better future.

Happy Year of the Ox, man. I, for one, am breathing better already.