A Week and a Half Back...

A week and a half have passed since my return into Great Bend, the place in which I have resided since October of 2001.  Over the course of that time, I have seen to the repair of my car's passenger side front tire (at some point along my travels, I struck a nail, causing the slow leek I discovered in Paducah Kentucky) - or perhaps I should better say the replacement of said tire - I have reengaged a number of the people familiar to me in the Great Bend community; and I have encountered three stray kittens I tend to the best I am able.

Aside from those activities, little else has transpired of any note.  

The major sticking point is the business of moving my dad.  He has never cared for residing in Great Bend.  His only reason for living the past eleven years in the place has been my sister (he moved here during the summer of 2001, at the bequest of my sister) and myself.  I have been lax in venturing out into the world, perhaps a bit gun shy from my earlier failures involving such attempts; perhaps a bit lazy, wrapping myself in the ease of a comfortable existence.  

Now a crossroads is where I find myself upon life's road.  My travels of the past two months enlightened me to the reality of something more, something greater, something awaiting me to grasp it.  I proved to myself I could traverse the busy highways that may have troubled me in the past.  I even enjoyed the challenge of latching my car's tires onto a road and traveling as far as I was able.

There is more to life than mere comfort.  

First, though, my dad needs to be moved.  If I had carried any wisdom about me, I would have seen to his being moved prior to my trip.  With him located in a place more familiar to him, more comfortable to his needs, I easily would have pursued tracking down work and a life for myself in one of the places through which I passed.  Does that understanding I now have indicate I would return to where I visited?  I can't say.  I only know I love to travel.  I love to learn new things.  I thrive on the stories every place has to tell.  I would like to be the one to tell those stories.  As a solitary individual, it appears where I would best be suited.

First, though, comes my dad.  I can abandon him to a place for which he cares not.

My hope is to move him nearer his brother Jim or his sister Rosalie.  Both live along the eastern border of Kansas: my uncle in Paola Kansas, my aunt in Lowry City Missouri.  Dad has mentioned Topeka as where he would like to return, which I see as a terrible choice as he needs to be around family.

But if Topeka is where Dad wishes to be, Topeka is where I will move him.

The problem has been starting this proverbial ball rolling.  My original idea of him looking for some place when in Paola and Lowry City, it never came to any fruition.  He remained an extra night at Aunt Rosalies; he stayed one night at Uncle Jim's; and then he returned to Great Bend.  I do not understand it; thereby, I know not how to proceed.  I know I must proceed, as I feel my own existence drying up like a dead carcass left to rot on an old Western ghost-town plains.  I must propel him in this direction; otherwise, my own hopes to advance my life into the direction of a career where I can contribute something of worth to a business, to an enterprise being advanced, to ideas being proposed for the benefit of all - a place where hard work and effort are actually appreciated, rather than chastised and renounced - my own life is done.

Perhaps, such is selfish on my part - thinking of myself.  Perhaps, I should be more altruistic, sacrificing everything that I am so my dad can live out his life in whatever comfort and ease my steadfast and continual presence can bring.  

Or, perhaps, by attacking the challenging road which lies ahead (as I did venturing out on my trip and crisscrossing the many states of our country I did) and pursuing my dreams, I could deliver more happiness and contentment to my father than relegating myself backwards into the ease of a life of comfort. 

I just wish I could find some help.  Not a person who would manage all the heavy lifting for me; that's not the kind of help I need.  I need someone who knows the road and can offer directions along the correct path.  Over the course of my days, there have been too many wrong turns and missed turnoffs to ever say I have been traveling in the right direction.  How does one uncover work for which their experiences, and talents, and abilities are suited?  I haven't a clue.  But starting today, I will be once more venturing out onto the confusing and muddled Internet information highway hoping to spy some semblance of something somewhere.