Sometimes It Takes a Minute

My Next Chapter Best Chapter Road Trip officially ended 75 days ago, and you are finally seeing this last blog post! Why is that? I’ve told myself a lot of excuses about why I couldn’t complete this article, but it’s simply because I wasn’t ready to close that chapter of my life.  After several years of living a very mediocre and unfulfilling life, I was actually LIVING MY DREAM LIFE. I wasn’t ready for it to end. I struggled when I first got back to Georgia. I had been on the road longer than I had lived in my new home. I had been on the road longer than I had been divorced, up to that point. I believed I had more to learn about myself and heal that could only be done on that road trip. I struggled with a little bit of sorrow and sadness that it was over.

What I am now realizing, 75 days later, is that in order to truly move on to the next part of my life, I must move forward, and close out the last chapter. So, while it’s taken me a while, I do see that God has great things in store for me, if only I would move on, and listen. And that while the actual road trip is over, my dream life is still continuing. It just looks a little bit different. I am still getting up every day, excited for what this new life will bring and what God has in store for me. I am still learning things about myself and healing parts of me that need to be healed. I have even traveled to several places, and I have some exciting trips and events planned in the upcoming months. I have done a good job of maintaining the connections I made on the trip. I am listening to my intuition (or the Holy Spirit) and following through on those nudges.

I am finally ready to close the Next Chapter Best Chapter Road Trip chapter! I hope you enjoyed following along on my road trip. I hope you were inspired in some way by my journey. I hope you made a new decision, connected with an old friend, repaired a broken relationship, traveled someplace new, or added to your bucket list. If my trip did inspire you, I’d love for you to send me a private message and let me know about it!

Here are the final statistics from my trip and the lessons I learned along the way:

11,561 miles, 122 days, and 256 hours = so much time alone, and plenty of time thinking about my life. I learned several lessons along the way:

• I am pretty good company if I do say so myself.
• Mowgli is a great travel buddy and I was so grateful to have him with me!
• Friends and family are truly the most important things in my life. I’m working on being intentional to maintain and cultivate those relationships.
• It’s so important to listen to my intuition or nudges from the Holy Spirit. I worked with an insightful, caring Christian shaman for a month of this trip (yes, I know I’m hippie dippy), and we talked about a lot of things, one of them is listening and looking for signs from the Holy Spirit. I was the queen of shoving those messages aside and listening to myself rather than God. And we all know how that turns out.
• I really love being outside and I especially love hiking!
• When I stay true to my core values and begin to take action (even when it’s sad or hard), God will bless those actions, He will open doors for me, and give me hope.
• I am now a “hat person”!
• My bucket list will never be complete. There will always be more I want to see, do, experience, and most importantly, be!

I LOVED having you along for the ride! Thank you for all the encouraging messages, travel advice, and love! It meant the world to me!  

Stay tuned for the Next Chapter of Susan 2.0.

Highlights from the last 40 days of my Next Chapter Best Chapter Road Trip: