There is something so peaceful about traveling alone. No one to consider, no one to accommodate, no one to engage with. The solitude of the open road provides its own comfort, one that cannot be found in the company of others. I drove over 2900 miles during my sojourn, not all of them solo. Having the distinct pleasure of a few days with a dear friend. Who was more than willing to accommodate all the crazy I bring with me, wherever I seem to go. It is just how I roll.
There are new things I learn about myself every time I take to the road, and some old things that I confirm once more. Each time I go it alone, I am reminded of the gift of solitude and its attendant curse. Life is both amazing and hard, as is life within your own mind. Sometimes the journey provides quiet respite, and other times it provides harrowing dramas, that threaten, shake and rattle your own confidence in who and what you think you are. Both are the intended purposes of all my solo travel.
Sometimes, I think, I forget who I am at home. I am this person who collects cats and workouts and hikes. I get up, go to work, parent and retire. It isn’t all that special, and at the very same time, it is quite fulfilling and life sustaining. But there is a part of me in my natural habitat I lack access to until I head out on an unplanned adventure to parts unknown, unexplored and unexpected. It is as if this wild hearted spirit levitates somewhere above my “normal” life. She waits, ever watchful for any sudden moves from me, anything indicative of travel, Then she descends upon me like some sort of mad bedeviled spirit who quickly, and summarily chases away all convention, all interest in the commonalities of my life, and propels me onto the open, vacant road.
And it is there in the miles of endless miles, that I gain access to some part of myself shut off from my own expression, my own life, my own experience. And while I am prepossessed of this alternative version of myself, I am freer than I ever am. I lose track of time, clocks become irrelevant. I am a human living each moment as it comes mile after vacant mile. And it is there within all the lacking of everything familiar or known to me that I become a higher version of myself, I become more who I am, and less of who everyone expects me to be. And that feels better, at least to me. I am sure the folks back home wonder if I am just going to never return one day, but those apron strings that tie, do not bind me, I can cut them if I so chose, but I do not chose or want that. My life at home just another varied expression of all the facets of my being.
I am an integral part in the lives of others. And I find a different kind of purpose in those relationships of mother, daughter, worker and friend. I find myself in there too, but she is not as complete, not as whole as the me I get to experience and enjoy when I am wondrously lost on some lonely highway in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know why I must always seem to get lost in order to find, some sort of life long game of hide and seek I play with myself. The person I become when traveling solo is a version I should like to share with someone else someday, perhaps. But I am not sure, like at all, whether that is even possible. Does the presence of another compel me to be the me that is always available at home? Or is there someone out there who can enjoy this other version of me that I tend to keep only for myself?
I guess that remains to be seen. For now, I am loving the time I am away, untethered and free. Not to the exclusion of who and what I am at home, but as some sort of augmentation, some sort of additional persona who is more wild, more free and less prone to routine and staying the course. I like both of the me’s honestly. I am content in this skin regardless of the exterior circumstances or locations, or anything really.
And that is something I only could learn traveling desolate and off the beaten path highways that lead to dead ends that only the truly lucky find. There is something to be said for getting and remaining lost, not unto yourself, but only to those others left behind for the moment.
I guess all solo journeys are journeys inward. And to go there, one must always go alone. And I access mine only after miles of endless driving on country roads, through small towns and lost to all that is familiar and known to me.
Again, still.
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