Why I Think I May Be Losing It
I don't know what’s gotten into me. I have this grand idea — it’s to get on the road and travel the country. Only, it may be more than just an idea. It’s as if I can hear this echo, telling me I must go.
I don’t know where it’s coming from, whether it’s from the mountains, or the rivers, or the long roads where you could swear the sky seems bigger. It’s this voice in my head, and I can’t shake it. I don't know where it’s calling me, I just know it’s not here. I don’t even know how I’d get there, or when I’ll be back. I just know I need to go.
You see, all my friends are getting married, buying houses, having kids, raising families, settling down. And for me, settling is the last thing that’s on my mind.
It’s like a switch has been flipped in my brain. I’m staying up all night researching, and coming up with all these plans to sell my car, ditch my apartment, and go travel. I’m already donating my clothes and selling my stuff. I’m even taking cold showers to prepare myself for life on the road. When I walk Luca these days, I purposely walk down this one street that has a house with a camper out front, just to remind myself that this is a real possibility, that it’s not just a voice in my head.
I’m sure some folks would hear this and encourage me to calm down a bit, not to share all this growing obsession with folks, lest they think that I seriously might be losing it. After all, people who have lost it can be unpredictable — you never know what’s coming.
So, I tell everyone: everyone I know and everyone I meet knows that I’m getting ready to go on a cross-country road trip.
I expect my friends to “talk me off the ledge,” but they encourage me, saying they better be a pitstop along the way.
The echo, maybe they can hear it, too!
Some friends remind me that there’s no rush, no timeline to have it all figured out right now. But something in me feels like this ship needs to get ready to leave the harbor sooner rather than later.
I tell my grandma and while I’m expecting her to be concerned about my safety or about making a responsible decision, she responds with the same enthusiasm she had when I came out to her almost a decade ago: “Why, yes, of course!”
I even tell the random guy I met at the bike shop, and then get into a full conversation about his plans for van life that he’s been working on too. It’s like we fan each other's fire.
I even left a note on my neighbor’s camper with my phone number, asking if they’d be willing to talk more about it with me. They invite me over to check it out. My flame gets bigger.
I mention it to my friend’s 70-year old dad who’s over for dinner. Then, we talk for hours about the time when he was 25 and spent the year traveling the country with no set plan.
Though he probably hasn’t had the opportunity to tell this story in years, each memory is so vivid of his stops along the way, and what he learned. And it gets me so excited. A part of me feels like i’m talking to myself, in the future. He tells me about this Steinbeck book I need to read, about the road trip he had taken with his dog: Travels with Charley. How uncanny — maybe mine will be Travels with Luca.
We both leave that conversation so excited. He even goes out and buys it for me the next day. He writes me a message on the cover, asking me to send him postcards along the way. He’s not the author, but it feels just as special to get a note, from one adventurer to another. One brave traveler, who didn’t know each step of the way before he took the first one. Who didn’t know how long he’d be gone, but just that he had to go. From one person who's lost it, to another.
I don't know when this shift first started to happen for me. Maybe it was when I jumped out of a plane and then bought another ticket. Maybe it was when I was as happy to sell my house as everyone else seemed to be about buying one. Maybe it was when I realized that a relationship isn’t the measure of my worth or value as a person.
I don't know where it came from, but something is brewing inside.
And you know, maybe I have lost it. Maybe I’ve lost the belief that by the time I’m 30 that I need to focus on settling down and raising a family. Or that by the time I’m 40 I should start to have more answers than questions. Or that my 50s are too late to start over again. Or that when I reach my 60s, there’s no point in trying to learn anything new.
Yea, maybe I have lost it, but I gotta tell you something: I kind of like it.