The fluorescent Exit sign burned holes in my retinas as I stared at it intently. My hair plastered itself to the side of my face as a thick film began to settle on my body.
My lips began to recede as the dry air sucked the life out them; their bee-stung nature becoming thinner with every minute that passed by.
The bags underneath my eyes let everyone around me know that the possibility of losing my grasp on reality was very much real and as my skirt’s elastic band dug into my stomach I asked myself, how did I get here, again?
Merely hours ago I was in Tahoe, California, living the greatest love story the world had ever seen. At least my world. Now I find myself on a plane to Boston, headed straight into a thunder storm, alone. It’s as though I was swept up in a tornado, spit out and left stumbling along the airport tarmac, wondering how this all happened.
This wasn’t part of the plan. I was supposed to be on the west coast. How did my life take such a turn within a forty-eight hour window? As humans we’re able to make quick and rash decisions and with a few clicks of a button, change the trajectory of our existence. Who gave me the keys to my life? I don’t remember passing a driving test to have this privilege. Life doesn’t come with a manual and now all of a sudden I am responsible for my happiness and unhappiness? And because of that, I went from being part of a couple to a singular atom propelling through the night sky, just trying to make it home after cancelled flights, missed flights altogether and lost luggage.
Two years prior to this moment, I came up with the brilliant plan to move into my car and travel across the country. I wanted to be a writer and thought a cross-country trek would help me formulate plot themes and characters and build upon a blog I had feebly started. More specifically I thought an adventure such as this one would help me become a “somebody.”
After reading “Eat Pray Love” I read that Miss. Gilbert went on her own journey cross-country looking for wild escapades to help her write her own stories. If she did it, then I could as well. And since she is definitely a somebody, perhaps I had a chance at being one too.
My own travels took me to a farm in Tennessee where I worked for room and board; with the room being a mice infested camper and the board being left-over vegetables that didn’t sell at the market. I saw the southwestern national parks and and made it all the way to Portland, Oregon. Backtracking to Tahoe City, California, I took respite on a friend of a friend’s couch. A much needed luxury after sleeping in my car or on the ground and using bathroom sinks as a shower.
My Tahoe host was kind enough to take me on a tour of all the things one must “see, do and eat” in this vacation land and before I knew it a week had passed. I decided to stay for another week and then another until my time there turned into a month and I was no longer sleeping on the couch. I had fallen for my host and made my way into his bed.
Love was never part of the equation. This road trip was for experience only and I had always regarded relationships as a road best not traveled. Vulnerability did not qualify as an adventure, but more as a complication.
Alas, one can only straddle the line of commitment and ambivalence before the exhaustion of indecision becomes harder to bear than the consequence of just making a decision. Within one week I crossed the boundary lines of staying and going. I put $1,000.00 down on a ski lease and signed a year rental. I found a job as a waitress at a five-star type restaurant that provided the Bay Area bloodsuckers an outlet to pay top dollar for their cappuccinos. I cried on the job, which I then quit and picked up my check worth one week of work, equalling $1,000.00 exactly. I paid off my portion of the house, packed my car and pulled into the driveway of my love’s home.
Without being able to muster any authority over the words that came spilling out of my mouth, I told him in a whisper that I was going home. To which he replied, “I knew before you did.” And with one last shared cup of coffee and a kiss, I slipped out of Tahoe, toward I-80 East and headed home.
Thinking this man would be yet another heart break, I assumed we would slip out of each other’s lives in much the same way I left the place we met.
Somewhere in Salt Lake City I received a text message from him just saying “hello and safe travels.” In Lincoln, Nebraska I called him to replay an interesting incident I had at a coffee shop. In Illinois we exchanged short inside jokes with one another, just to brighten each other’s day.
Four days of driving later, I made it home, finally able to exhale after months of being on the road. I had returned with no characters or plot themes and I hadn’t written a single entry in my blog. I wanted the 11,400 miles I put on my car to provide the ability to evoke emotion as a story-teller and entertain a crowd at a drop of a hat. Seemingly I had failed the entire purpose of my road trip.
As time passed novellas began to form from the text messages between myself and my west coast love. Not a single day passed by without some sort of written or verbal connection. To this day I refuse to upgrade my phone for fear of losing our story. Roughly 5,300 texts have filled the miles between us.
Now, some two years later, I find myself in much the same situation, albeit more mature; saying good-bye to my love and slipping out of Tahoe. Our relationship, based on holiday visits and written letters, text messages and Skype sessions finally had the opportunity to expand into the realm of living together; as long as I made the move to Tahoe due to the binding nature of his profession. Try as I might though, I could not picture myself in this west coast ski town.
With that realization and a few clicks of a button, I hastily managed to book myself a flight home and within forty-eight hours found myself at the airport saying good-bye again to my love. The only difference being that this time I would be flying instead of driving back home and a return visit was an altogether unknown at this point in our relationship.
The Exit sign a few rows ahead glared at me asking over and over, why I had to get on this plane. The days of travel hell taunting me as if they were a sign I should have stayed. Two years had passed since this moment and still no book, no blog posts, not even complete journal entries. I barely had a plan of what was to come next and I still hadn’t managed to become a somebody.
What I did have was two years of memories, laughs, lessons and the most incredible life journey I could have gone on with my west coast counter-part; commemorated in daily messages to each other.
Turns out, I was a somebody to him.