The Debt We Create with “Next Time"

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Some years ago, I found myself standing on a quiet, grey street in a small German town.

It was a place I hadn’t seen in decades—the neighborhood where I lived as a young soldier in the Army with my family.

Since then, life has taken many turns, divorce, jobs, oh so many countries, states, places, and faces have come and gone.

Now here I stood holding my wife's hand, the weight of decades now past hanging around us, just standing there, staring, processing.

In my mind, this street had been a "golden" memory: full of block parties, children’s laughter, and a sense of community that felt alive and warm, and reverberated through my mind.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, and yesterday all mixed together in an impossible mental timeline.

So many people that I knew so well. People I saw every day, I worked with, dined with, had drinks with, listened to music, talked about our future plans like these days and friendships would last forever.

Standing there, thinking about it all I found that I could see many of the faces in my mind, but the names escaped me now.

I had looked forward to going back to Grunberg, to seeing it all again, to getting the taste once again of a point in time from my past.

The reality that day was different. Standing there, just drinking in the scene, my mind wandering, with the clarity of the present settling in.

The street was worn, the apartment buildings overgrown with weeds and trees, and the vibrant energy I remembered had faded into a hushed stillness.

That moment brought a second wave of feelings I hadn’t expected.

Like a dense fog clearing and suddenly exposing the open road once again. The realization that alongside the "golden memories" lives the weight of the sad times that also existed—the months-long deployments, the pressure of being a soldier, and the quiet fear that defined those years.

The fantasy I had built in my mind washed away, leaving only the truth. I wasn’t there to relive glory days; I was there to close a door that had been left open for more than 30 years.

Let me take a step back for a moment.

For months now, I have been working on a draft of what I thought would be a travel blog about crossing the country by cars, motorcycles, trains, and maybe in a motorhome.

It felt light and fun, just a plan to revisit the places in American that I had passed through over the years.

It was well written, structured, made sense for a travel blog, but I just couldn't hit publish on it, something just stopped me cold each time.

Something else was there, a deeper meaning that was driving me.

I realized as I re-read what I had drafted that I was focusing on vehicles and destinations, as if the destinations were the goal.

But I was ignoring something far more profound:

The need to get out there once again, not just to see the destinations again.

No, this was a need to reconcile with myself.

Over the years I have gotten to see some amazing sights, cities, and meet many people. I have had the chance to make so many memories all over the world.

Thinking back those memories have all been carefully polished. They are the stories I have loved to tell over and over as the years rolled by. But they end the same way each time. I left; I moved on.

My life at times has moved at a hectic pace, and I have kept on promising myself "the way many of us do," that I will be back to this place, or that place for a longer stay next time.

That I would spend more time with the people I just met or already knew.

I always imagined that I could show up, and we could pick back up again and continue on without missing a beat.

How I wish that were true. When we are truly honest with ourselves, well, we know somethings just will never be again:

When I can remember the moonlight on the ridge and the taste of the coffee in that diner in 2004, but I can't remember the name of the person sitting across from me.

When I can remember the smell of rain in the desert, a jukebox in a nameless town, but the person I was spending time with? Well, their name is gone, only the feeling remains, along with the hollow promise of "next time".

Yes, if "next time" was money, I would be a very rich man. But "next time" is just an IOU that you give to yourself.

Yes, it is a debt to yourself built over years and decades, until you start to realize it is one that can't ever be settled in full.

Those years are spent, those precious moments gone, and time?

Time is the one thing we never get any more of, no matter what.

Slowly it started to come together, travel was not the story, there was a need under it all, a large step back I needed to take, the need to be honest with myself.

I don’t just want to see the mountains or the historic squares of countless cities and towns, the oceans, the seas, or any foreign lands again.

I need to return to these places as someone changed by time and experience to integrate the past with my present.

Oh, we all create a "Greatest Hits" reel of our younger selves—the high-stakes career, the fast travel, the "golden" moments.

But in the end nostalgia is a liar; it just polishes the edges and removes the grit.

It leaves behind the version of us that only lives on in our minds.

To move forward sometimes we need to turn the fading Polaroids of our memory into a clear, shared reality that can support a life yet to come.

Maybe this was not about closure but about gaining clarity?

A clarity that releases the past and allows me to fully inhabit the future.

I have turned this over and over mentally. I have starting to write this out over and over, only to hit the wall where it didn't feel honest.

I thought maybe I would just scrap the idea entirely.

But the idea wouldn't let go of me, and finally I sat down again, and just let the words flow, let the feelings pour out.

As I slowly read through the words I had hammered out without pause, without worrying about spelling, or if it made complete sense.

An admission formed, one that was uncomfortable, one that isn't easy.

We curate our own mental museums, carefully putting the spotlight on the mental trophies fabricated for ourselves. All while pushing the wreckage we have incurred our lives into the basement of our souls.

We do it to survive; we highlight the high points to drown out the noise of the anger, the betrayals, and the quiet failures of our story.

Uncomfortable chapters we would rather not read again, but ones that are the stones making up the foundation of us.

I’ve reached a point where the museum feels more like an anchor.

The basement door needs to be opened. I need to shine a light on it all and see the wreckage once again.

I started by thinking this would be something I could 'finish'—an itinerary with a start and an end.

But I was wrong. You don’t unpick decades of a built-up identity in a single year, or two, or maybe ten.

This isn't a tour; it’s a release valve.

This is a process of seeking clarity—of taking that second, deeper look at the 'golden' places built up in my mind, an open look with no filters.

It is melding the truth of the past and how I intend to live from here on out.

It’s about finally being honest enough to say: I was there, I saw it, it was beautiful, and often painful at the same time.

And both of those things can be true at once.

There is a profound vulnerability in admitting that you might be misremembering the "best years of your life."

To admit the past was "glossed over" is to admit that you've been living with ghosts, nothing concrete that you can touch, just an illusion that is fleeting at best.

In reality, I am talking about a reconnaissance mission for the soul.

I know I can't go back to who I once was, and there is a "sadness" that goes along with that fading past, one that is also mixed with an "excitement" of what is to come.

This is also about sharing life, seeing it all again, but now through the eyes of a loved one, and that is an entirely different experience.

I want to share this all with my wife, just as we did years ago on the small grey street in Germany.

Share it, so it becomes foundational for the future we build together, foundational for our understanding of each other.

Shared between us as the years our life begin to sunset.

I used to think I knew exactly who I was. I had the titles, the meetings, and the polished stories to prove it.

But standing on that grey street in Germany holding my wife's hand taught me that those stories are just the paint on one of oh so many doors that’s been locked across the decades.

It is time to see if the man I was and the man I am can even occupy the same space.

I don’t know what I’ll find when the gold washes out and I’m left with the grit and the weeds—and that’s exactly why I have to go.

The engine is idling. The map is open. But for the first time, I have no idea where the road is actually taking me.

But this time I am not taking it alone.

I hope if you are reading this and struggling with the silence of what comes next in life like I was, that you sit quietly and listen, give yourself the grace needed to be still and accept the gift of new tomorrows.

I write this Knowing how truly blessed I am!

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Quite street in Germany