Well, schizophrenia, a bummer. I hear voices and was once trapped in a house of mirrors.
I’m free for now due to the beautiful drug Invega, a medicine that despite its anxious beginnings and my reluctance to live a life on medication has helped me immensely.
As mentioned before, my name is Luke, and I’m here to build a foundation or journal of my progression after recovering, hopefully. As of July 25th I no longer hear voices and am inspired to start a travel blog before I start traveling.
It won’t come for a while, the adventures, but I’m here to build for a hopeful side income and a route to creating support for non-profit organizations. What better time to start than with all the time on my hands.
Might as well tell you my backstory.
At age 18 I attended Santa Barbara City College, where I attended for a business degree but quickly moved to San Diego later that year in a fling of the moment with a woman who I once loved, and whom I still greatly respect.
I worked 60 hours a week, bussing tables over two jobs to afford rent and never quite got the point of living life that way. I still suffer from this problem. I wanted an adventure, I’d craved working at a National Park as a Ranger but quickly found my dropout college degree wouldn’t take me.
I found seasonal work, my holy grail. That summer I took on a bussing job in the Grand Tetons, awakened for the first time by grand views of mountains covered in snow with adventurous people surrounding me. I bussed tables, I met people, then I climbed Mountains.
Due to my inability to find training I set out to climb a mountain solo at age 20, as a matter of fact on my 20th birthday on July 10th. I climbed Mount Woodring solo by borrowing someones car and braving the night. It was dangerous, stupid, one of the most amazing moments of my life.
That summer I climbed 8 mountains, and failed one twice. Through progressive training and extensive research I approached the Grand Teton in late August. I failed, snow bitten. The next weekend I tried again, a 16 mile failure with the ruling of death below me as my hands froze in snow at a marker just past what is known as the “crawl”.
From there on out I was addicted, seasonal, traveling and adventure became my life. That summer and the following winter I met my partners in travel, Kam and Jack, and from there on out for the next 3 years I worked National Parks and traveled the world with my dear friends.
We are inexperienced, we are poor, we are dirt bags that I consider to be the cowboys of the new world.
This past year I had an unfortunate run in with mental illness, and my adventures came to a temporary end.
Now I’m looking for the valleys, not just the mountains.
It’s time to re-establish my foundation as a writer, as a possible artist, a birdwatcher, a stock trader, a forager, wherever the path takes me next.
Blogging slowly became a passion of mine after writing for We’re in the Rockies, a guide company I wrote for about Mount Rainier National Park. I don’t have college experience, nor much of a resume.
Yet I can’t help but think this is my own personal journal, my recovery and as mentioned foundation towards building financially for a home one day. A home for my friends, a home for us wanderers, a place for a cowboy to rest their head at night.
It’s writing with hopes of profit, with hopes to feed my travels and the foundation of my illness that could save others. I may not always be here in the head all the time but when I find myself I believe my words are enough, and I hope they’re enjoyed and taken into consideration.
An Imaginable Life 