It's 4:30 a.m., and here I sit in a laundromat in some empty desert town with a handful of close friends who were complete strangers just weeks before.
In just a matter of hours we'll be boarding buses and going our separate ways to cities all over the country. My journey ends here.
But for now I'll just sit here sipping my first cup of coffee in what seems like forever, listening to the rhythmic sounds of washing machines accompanied by the chords of an out-of-tune guitar.
I fidget into clothes that no longer fit and run my hands through a beard comprised of a patchy layer of reddish scruff - a symbol of the clash between youth and adulthood that has taken place over the past month as I backpacked my way through the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
People ask me why I climb mountains. Some say that it builds character, but I would disagree. From my experience, it helps dissolve the outer layers that we build up to mask our true personalities.
We climb our way to the top, legs churning over false peak after false peak, just as in life we keep our hearts churning through false hope after false hope. As long as we don't turn around we'll make it eventually, and in the process, the superficial surface masking our true character erodes away.
As you stand on the summit, your true self exposed in the thin alpine air for the world to see, you feel like you can take on anything life can throw at you.
Of course there are things that happen in life that not even the highest mountains can prepare us for. Sitting in a hospital room every day for nearly a month holding the hand of a comatose best friend who I've grown up with my entire life is something that no one can ever prepare for. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies.
But if there's anything that you can learn from traversing the peaks and mesas of life, it's that we can't hide from our problems. If we avoid our troubles they will only recycle themselves and reappear elsewhere, like the bottles that we empty to try and drown them, or the rainstorms that we drive through to try and escape them.
Back to the laundry room: pouring over maps and sorting through bus and plane tickets, each of us struggle to find words for the experiences that we've been through. It's here that I learn the final lesson of my adventure.
We all come to a point in our life where we walk the line between intelligence and wisdom, and it is here that everything we've ever learned and every experience we've ever endured shines through.
Sometimes there is no direct correlation between wisdom and maturity. Take it from a scrawny kid from Tulsa, Okla., barely out of high school: "You may only get to see some of your best friends once or twice in your life, but getting the chance to meet them makes it all worth it."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
