Thoughts About Finishing Up

Santa Monica Pier - finishing point of Route 66

I was thinking this morning about finishing things. You see I have a problem finishing things; for every blog post that’s been published out there for you to read, there are probably two others that never made it out there for the world to read. There are a number of reasons for this, sometimes I get distracted, sometimes the muse just leaves me, sometimes I decide that the 5 paragraphs I’ve written are just dumb, sometimes it’s just hard to finish things while being constantly on the road. I do save everyone of my unfinished blog posts, but rarely do I go back to complete them (I do hope this post eventually is finished).

Kennedy Space Center - final location for the space shuttle Atlantis

This problem goes beyond just my blogging, it is also sometimes a problem in my professional life. As I travel I do a small amount of work for my employer University of Washington. Just yesterday my coworker Christine was asking me if I was going to finish up a couple of tasks I had started. I believe the work is complete, but I haven't marked the tasks complete. I wanted to make sure everyone involved is happy (or at least content) with the work before I truly mark the task complete. The problem is that the tasks sit there, not getting finished up, another example of my difficulty finishing up things, especially while on the road.

California Science Center - final location for the space shuttle Endeavour

As for this trip, the final plans and reservations have now been made, and we are on the final stretch. As we head for home, and I wonder if I am going to really be able to finish up this trip and consider it marked complete. Sure I will be home, sure I will go back to working in an office, but will I truly go back to my “old” pre-trip life? Will there be some fundamental life change from this trip that will be noted? Is that what it means to finish this trip up? Maybe to truly be finished do I need to sell the truck and camper and perhaps buy a Harley so that the next trip will be completely different (don’t worry Mom, I’m not going to buy a motorcycle...well, I probably won’t). Or perhaps as we enter Washington State for the first time in 9 months we will decide as a family we don’t want this trip to be finished. As we drive up to Seattle, we just keep going north and do another loop (back again in February). I doubt that will happen. 

Key West Florida - Finishing point of Highway 1

I look forward to the change in our life style that will come from living in our house again, but like so much else I don’t think this trip will ever be finished. Perhaps as we pull the camper into our own driveway we will just be making another stop in this trip, but this time just for a while longer than usual stops we've made in the past 9 months. Eventually we will be heading off on another adventure. There is still so much to see, so many places to go.


UPDATE: For those unfinished work items from my job at the University of Washington, I finally got around to calling my coworker and confirming that everything is considered resolved. I say resolved, because I'm pretty sure the work will never be finished.