I know “[my] mountain is waiting. So… [I’ll] get on [my] way!”

We all have them. Those relics of our younger years that stick with us forever. It’s almost as if something tells us that while we might not understand or relate to those things then, someday we’ll find their place or meaning in or lives, so we store them away in our cherished memories until that time comes.

I’ve been a dreamer my entire life. A person who wished away months, years of her life just waiting for the next phase to roll around. Teenage years, high school, being old enough to drink, or drive, university, living the adult life. See, I grew up in a really small town that I knew I had outgrown very young and I was desperate to get out and see what else the world had to offer. That adventurous spirit has led me from one place to the next - one season of my life, to the next, to the next, but as soon as I got there, I was right back to waiting for the next time in my life to come.

I remember the first time I heard “Oh The Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss. A teacher of mine read it to me at the end of our school year together; a tradition she had continued her entire tenure in education. I connected with the rhymes instantly. It was a child’s book, but it told such a powerful story. “You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.” For many, those affirmations are powerful motivation to grab life by the horns - and I was no different. I carried Seuss' words with me all throughout school and into the real world, always using my “head full of brains and shoes full of feet” to determine if I was I about to go down any “not-so-good-street.” And as time ticked on, I was still just waiting for it to be the day I was “off to Great Places! [Off] and away!” because it just didn’t, yet, feel like “my day.”

But the book takes a dark turn in the middle. Seuss warns that sometimes we’ll get lost on our path - a concept that’s easily understood, but until you get older, the words “[and] when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done” are un-relatable to you. I hit the slump of all slumps where the “streets [were] not marked [and] some windows were tinted, but mostly [they were] darked” for quite a few years, after the rose-colored glasses of uni and travel had faded to the grey lens of adulthood.

As if to parallel the journey of life, the book continues somberly. I think at some point in all our lives, we’ll feel alone and “there’s a very good chance [we’ll] meet things that scare [us] right out of our pants." There were many “between hither and yon,” that scared me “so much, [I didn’t] want to go on.” But I hoped the dark wouldn’t last forever. So again, I found myself being the person who was “just waiting.” The person who was “waiting for a train to go, or a bus to come, or a plane to go, or the mail to come, or the rain to go…” but it was okay, right? Because “everyone is just waiting.”

Well this year I listened to Seuss’ wisdom and “somehow [I] escaped all the waiting and staying…” and found my “bright places where the boom bands are playing.” It’s like he knew - like he’d been there, too. Now, decades later, the book designed for the mind’s of the young all makes sense.

Wise was the Dr. who wrote advice like life is “a Great Balancing Act” and we should “never mix up [our] right [feet] from our left.” But perhaps wisest of all were the first and last verses of the book when he said “today is your day.” Ambiguous was he, as if to say that today and every day you’re “off to Great Places! You’re off and away!”

It’s been a long journey to where I am. I’m happier and stronger than I’ve ever been in my life and each day, despite what gets thrown my way, I’m looking forward to the future, but for the first time I’m still able to enjoy the moment while I’m in it. I’ve lived out every page of my “Oh The Places You’ll Go” story - learning many lessons along the way. And while my name may not be “Bauxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,” I know “[my] mountain is waiting. So… [I’ll] get on [my] way!”