Chase the Horizon (POST #8)

"Chase the horizon and never stop. Keep chasing it." - N/A, 2005

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After my crazy May and June so far, I have been everywhere. Which, I should say, explains my lack of a May blog post: finishing up No Tears (Reckoning), getting ready for my local renaissance festival on cast (5th year), selling 38 of my 40 books in stock since March (yahoo!!!!!), and welcoming our third child into the world (pictured above) last week. Then starting said renaissance festival last weekend, which is to last for 7 more weekends. Oh, and we spent 3 days in the hospital this week and just got home tonight.  To say the least, it has been crazy busy. I know that all sounds like a lot of excuses for a lack of a May blog post.

To not delay any further, the blog post is below. The memory I am about to detail is very dear to me, so I hope you walk away with as much wisdom as I did some 19 years ago.

I do not remember the precise words in the above quote at the top of this blog, their lasting impact lost to the sands of time that a 20-year-old Firefighter did not write down some 19 years ago now. I was working as a Volunteer Firefighter, gaining my experience before progressing my career years later to the paid ranks, and working full-time as an EMT for a local ambulance company. It was during a routine transport call working for the ambulance company that an older patient told me the above wisdom (quote) that has stuck with me ever since. It was a defining moment in my life and one I think on every-so-often.

Like our favorite Holy Bible verses we like quoting, I have more oftentimes than not left out his following words of wisdom (that I will retell below). And this will be important later on.

He was a 1960s rocker, traveling the rock craze that swept through America in the 1960s. I do not believe he served in the Vietnam War or the military, because our whole conversation centered around him traveling the United States with his rock band and following other rock bands as a groupie in his 20s and 30s. He went where the winds blew and smiled at the many memories he had gained, memories that kept an older man young and happy many years later. He had no regrets, except for one (detailed below), and was unapologetic for the crazy life he lived. He was, looking back historically, the very definition of the heart of the 1960's young American; maybe not a "Hippie" as history may coin him, but a rebel. A rebel against the system riding the crazy times that were the 1960s.

At any rate, the man had lived a life and unfortunately, how he put it to me, he was dying. The unrestrained indulgence of pleasures that his rebellious memories told a story of had finally caught up to him. I was going to be his last chance to impart some type of wisdom to carry on, as much for the wisdom of life contained within his words as it would be for his own memory in life in this world to carry on would be. If I remember correctly, he had a sibling (a sister I think) but no children or living parents to carry on his legacy or memory. This was it. The final green mile, the fading into---as he amply put to me---the horizon. As I do now 19 years later, I hold this moment in rare honor, a moment to not be dealt with in any way other than with deep respect.

He had one regret: it was a girl. As much as the winds of adventure and rebellion called to him, this girl called to his heart. He was in love, and it would be the only love he truly loved as he told me. I remember watching his eyes fade into a distant memory, his smile of adventurous memories disappear, and a longing---a regret---fall over his face and eyes. As much as he had told me to chase the horizon, he looked to me and said, his voice distant and full of painful regret:

"When you find a girl and you know she's the one to settle down with, stop. Stop chasing the horizon. I wish I would have stopped; I saw myself marrying her. We were in love."

It was in that moment that he smiled, a reflection of years and of his one and only regret in a life he otherwise enjoyed to the fullest.

"But I couldn't stop chasing the horizon."

While my 20-year-old steel suited emotional abyss of a brain could not understand it then, I certainty (19 years later), understand the impact of those solemn words now after living my own life and nearing 40 years old. A wife, two children (now 3), and a house have all come after chasing the horizon and after fulfilling my own amazing journey of ups, downs, crazy turns, and wild decisions. While the "American Dream" of home ownership and children may be standard fair for some, it was not an outcome or a destiny that I thought was in my cards. I was so dedicated to the fire department, so dedicated to chasing that horizon, that I never slowed down (just like the rocker). While God had different plans and a back injury ended my fire service career after only 5 years---and I could spend years discussing the "horizon" and crazy memories that I had with Jesus Christ during and the years immediately after the fire department---it was that back injury and God's unrelenting course correction in my life that has me where I am today.

And as much as I feel that I have "settled down" and found that girl and am in the process of raising a family, I find that my book writing is as much indicative to my current walk with Jesus Christ in the context of a family (instead of a young 20's year-old man coming out of the fire department): chasing that horizon in a new way, a new context, and not slowing down. A way of chasing the horizon that maybe that 1960's rocker didn't know about or never had the opportunity to experience? A new "type" of horizon for me? I am chasing the horizon with my book writing and after doing this very seriously with research & writing since about 2018 (ish), I find the journey of chasing that horizon becoming more and more profound and deep. And yet, that 1960 rocker's wisdom holds true in yet another sense: keep the priority the priority. Maybe I don't have to "settle down" for a girl, like he did, but I need to keep my new horizon in context to what I have gained beforehand by stopping and not chasing the horizon endlessly, only seeking for the next adventure and not realizing what I already have before me.

Where does my book writing go from here? Where does the horizon end? Does it end? If you would have asked me back in April of this year if I would have sold 38 out of 40 books in physical stock that I have (in less than 2 months), I would have called you a liar.

Yet here we are. Could it be a short burst of excitement before the waters of reality once again overtake the fishing boat in the lake? Or should I trust in Jesus Christ, trust in the moment, and chase the horizon and see where this book writing adventure goes?

Can I get to 100 books sold since 2016? Even more? What does the horizon and this journey hold for me?

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 “Someday. But not today.”

Giovanni Salzano
pg. 7; No Tears (Reckoning)