Walking Down Memory Lane

I've reached the furthest west on my road trip and have placed my feet on the solid ground of Lawrence, KS and the hallowed halls of my alma mater. It's been four years since I was here last. It was early Spring then and I really didn't get the opportunity to get back to and enjoy a lot of the sites that I had enjoyed while I was in college. This time I'm not letting that opportunity go by.

Alot of this road trip has been about retracing steps. Whether I actually thought about this when I came up with the idea or not is question, it's been about looking back at where I came from and maybe, just maybe, looking at where the road heads from this point on out. My path has been a twisted one and required many different roads. Literally it's take me down I-88, I-80, I-35, I-70, I-40, I-20, I-85, I-81, I-66 and I-95. That's the path from Chicago to Kansas to Mississippi and then to DC. However, figuratively, there's a lot of country roads, some made of gravel and some of red dirt, that have helped along the way.

My path hasn't really gone all that far-- from Naperville to the top of Mt. Oread, to the Grove and now to Adams Morgan. A common thread I'm sure can be found somewhere therein. However, I'm not sure what it is but I encourage Mr. Coles to create a testable hypothesis that eventually will come to an answer that none of us can understand but it would make a lot of sense. I've second guessed a lot of my decisions to move to or from various places. I try to play it out in my mind...how each different change would have affected the outcome. Would I be in the same place? Would I be just as good? Or just as bad?

Lawrence does hold a special place in my heart. I have a special affinity for it unlike any other place that I have been. It's the only place where hippies freely mix with trust fund babies and where I could meet so many random but fabulous people. It's a one of a kind town and to be honest I lucked upon it. When I was deciding where to go to college I am sure that Kansas was nowhere on my radar until one day a random coach named Zhawn showed up at a meet in Alabama. Thankfully I actually swam well that day.

Sitting here now, with hindsight on my side, I wonder if I enjoyed my college days to the fullest. If I used that time as well as possibly could have. Could I have done more? Should I have tried harder at doing X? Or less at Y? Should I have dated this girl or that one? If you ask Chad what he thought of my girlfriends during college I'm sure you'd get a couple crazy stories. So basically please don't ask him. After all these thoughts I pause and think to myself, sure I could have done it different but I had so much fun the way I did it, why would I want to change a thing.