17th
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In precisely two weeks, on July 1, I expect to wake up to a feeling that I’ve been anticipating for quite some time: that of true freedom, unknown possibility. I’ll take a shower, drink two cups of hazelnut coffee from the carafe waiting for me in the kitchen, maybe scramble some eggs, and flip through the pages of a real paper magazine—the only ritual I’ve been able to hang on to since my life as I knew it was thrown into disarray, without any control on my part.
I’ll finish loading my car, a white 2010 VW Jetta purchased oh-so-serendipitously back when times were flush, with everything I might need while on the road for the next few months—which won’t be at all difficult, as only a fraction of my belongings (above) survived the fire that ate my apartment building on May 14, 2011. I’ll reset the trip odometer to 000000 and set my iPod to shuffle. Inevitably, I’ll have to scroll through a few songs to find one that fits the moment. Then I’ll kiss my parents goodbye and pull away from my childhood home, where I’ve been staying for the past month and pondering my next move.
The wanderlust is nothing new; I’ve always dreamed of this sort of adventure. But now, fueled by a strange disorientation that can only flourish when all of one’s major life components—job, relationships, habitat—seem to have dissolved into nothingness overnight, a freewheeling journey across America finally feels so right. Despite the soul-crushing disappointments and the terrific uncertainty of what awaits in the future, tomorrow will come…and I’ll be there, in a new city, a foreign landscape, to embrace it. Traveling solo, but never alone.
