I don’t like long, drawn out, and repetitive goodbyes. Forgetting things is normal, and if I didn’t remember it, I can have it sent to me. I do not turn around. I do not say farewell more than once for the same journey.
I left town without seeing very good friends of mine; I forgot a very important couple of articles at the start of my journey; I almost walked out leaving the spare keys. Anxiety is an issue for me, I become short tempered and caustic. So off I went.
I set the GPS to avoid the toll road between Topeka and Kansas city, taking smaller highways North and East closer to my destination, which cuts my drive time by two hours from Ft Riley to Iowa City. I saw many very small communities, and a number of hawks and falcons feeding along the roadside, fresh catch from the tilled farmlands that wont be planted until next season. I had an argument with a friend of mine via text message (which is not recommended, and I would have rather called so that my humor would have been conveyed the right way, but that is made ever difficult by people when they don’t pick up the phone) and I wish I hadn’t. I need the people I care about because they are precious few and I don’t gather loved ones like wildflowers; they are my special roses that I tend for. However, with the wide open road ahead of me and skies above me, with no one else to listen except my radio, I finally vocalized what I knew was in the back of my head all along: I need to leave my roses to bloom as they will, and allow Nature to take Her course to nurture and neglect as She sees fit.
My place is not between the thorns of my roses.
About 100 miles from my destination my car overheats, and I must pull off and let it cool. it still smell like burning oil, but my Father says that’s normal because changing the head-gasket on a car is a messy job, and I need to degrease my engine, otherwise let it all burn off (which is not something he recommended). I finally pull up to where my Auntie is staying around 7:30 PM. Its a nice place that she dog-sits at every once and a while for friends of hers. I sleep in the next morning, shower, and when she comes back from Meeting, she has our sixteen year old Cousin with her. My Cousin is a sweet, bright young lady, and even though we don’t get to see each other much, I love her very much. She has great potential to achieve anything she wishes to pursue, but is plagued by normal teenage worries. In the two days since, we’ve been able to spend some time together, at a small get together and a day-trip to the Amana Community here near Cedar Rapids. Since we really don’t have anything else to do this week I plan on having a couple more “girl’s trips” with the three of us.
Also this week, I need to make the rest of my plans for this trip of mine. The two next goals are New Year’s Eve in/ around Chicago, Illinois, and my friend’s house near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before he goes off on the fourth of January. The next handful of stops include talking my friends in New Jersey to meet me halfway between PA and NJ, and then to Washington DC, to see more people and more museums. From there, I go to Nashville, Tennessee, to try and talk to my other Aunt and Uncle on my Mother’s side. I also plan on a short day trip to Memphis, to see Graceland. South again through the Carolinas, to Georgia. I know a few people there, and wanted to see them all before heading to Savannah. West then, to New Orleans; visit there before Mardi Gras, and turn again Northward to Ft Polk, and see friends from this past deployment. Then to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for more people, and through OKC to get to the Grand Canyon. Serious South-West from there, to San Diego, California, to visit my Father’s oldest brother. Turn North again to Santa Monica to visit my youngest Aunt, then drive HW1 to Monterrey/ Santa Cruz, and I’m Home. I’m allowing myself about a week to two weeks to make sure everyone sees me, and to get my paperwork, finances, and life in order, then I’m off again: this time to Hawaii, to stay with my Godsister while she waits for her knight in shinning armor to come home. This is going to be a fun month to be sure.
My time along these American roads will be spent alone for the most part. I have yet to find anyone else with some spare funds or time to join me on this Journey of mine, and I’m beginning to think that it might be a form of Providence that I learn to be with myself. I have spent very little time being me with myself alone these last four years; I seem to be a stranger in my own mirror, and that is not an idea that I want to live with. I am finding myself with these miles, and I might be the luckiest girl alive to know the freedom that comes with being able to simply turn my car to whichever direction my imagination fancies. I will be able to figure out what it is that sparks that drive in me, the creative and artistic abilities that have been unfed and neglected for so long that they are hardly recognizable. I am allowing myself the freedom to find the passion in my heart and the flurry in my mind that makes every living day sparkle and shine as the stars on a clear night. This will be my epic adventure, my story to show how the coming of age is much older than it has become, and that it is never too late to make good on those promises you made to yourself as a child. These ramblings, my recollections, my gift to you viewing my crossroads from your life are meant neither as a political, social, or monetary commentary. This is me growing up again, after again and again being an adult in a room full of half-children and the mentally elderly. This isn’t saying that everyone I have known isn’t who they are meant to be; this is me saying that I have had precious little company to help be climb this rockface.
So here I have already started. Headstrong and headfirst into the wild wild wild unknown of what I see before me…
wanderingfaery 