Time it was and what a time it was

The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it.
- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

A moment ago, it seems, that I set out on my grand adventure into the unknown, waving goodbye to one life as we turned the aptly-named Explorer towards the new one ahead.

It had been a disorienting summer for me. After having the metaphorical rug pulled out from under me with much pomp and circumstance, I found it difficult to regain my balance at home. Where once I would have found bedrock, there was little solidity for me to grasp onto that might help me feel my way through the impenetrable fog of my looming future. My time back home was necessarily temporary.

Mom already had an apartment at the time, though she was still living at the house as she and Dad worked through the divorce settlement. With me there, it was too easy for all of us to fall into old habits, which is exactly what it no longer was. Dad & Mom were both struggling to pick their own separate paths forward and I felt like my presence -- the last vestige of normalcy, the life that was -- was holding them back in a way, too.

And so it was that they both came home at lunchtime that Wednesday afternoon to see me off. I had spent the previous two days madly sorting through my belongings, picking what to keep, what to discard, what to take, what to leave behind, with Bryan patiently idling by. But finally our stuff was stowed in the U-Haul, Dad had some last-minute trailer advice, and I hugged my teary goodbyes on the edge of the gravel drive. I suspect my parents wanted to stop me as much as I wanted them to, but my future was now officially in my own hands. Not only was I headed down an unknown road, but we all were, and my leaving this time somehow underscored the big change in all our lives; nothing would ever be the same.

These thoughts and more accompanied me on the first leg of the journey that led me here as we traversed the lonely hills and distant mountains, the enormous sky broken by solitary thunderclouds with sheets of rain trailing beneath. Bryan and I switched drivers at each gas stop, the passenger reading aloud from On The Road, as the miles and hours blurred by... Casper. Sheridan. Billings. Bozeman.

...Ten years ago, today.

When as a child I laughed and wept, Time crept.
When as a youth I waxed more bold, Time strolled.
When I became a full-grown man, Time RAN.
When older still I daily grew, Time FLEW.
Soon I shall find, in passing on, Time gone.
O Christ! wilt Thou have saved me then?
Amen.
- Henry Twells (1823-1900)