Prologue
I remember it like it was yesterday, the day I knew. It was the summer of 2014, on the Fourth of July. I was twenty-four years old, working as a waitress. I was living with my mom in the house I’d lived my entire life. I’d lived a few other places, but never on my own. It was four-thirty in the morning when my alarm went off. I got up, turned it off, and went out for a smoke. I don’t know exactly what came over me. I had this thought, one I’d had a million times before, of not wanting to do this anymore. By the time I finished my smoke, went back in and up to my room, I knew. I sat on my bed and it all just clicked. I knew I wasn’t going to work, and that I had to make a change. I had to do the one thing I have been wanting to do all my life. It was time. I had had enough of living that life, so I made the decision to drop everything and follow my heart. I just knew, without any reason for knowing, that I was doing the right thing by this.
It was completely unprovoked. I’d left my boyfriend of five years about five months before I made the choice to leave, and wasn’t feeling exceptionally hurt anymore. My family and I were on good terms. I had my friends, a decent job, and a plan to move to Florida the next winter. I lived a fairly stable life, I couldn’t really complain, but I was never really happy. I always felt like there was more to life. More than working for a house or apartment, more than school and careers. I always believed life shouldn’t revolve around money. It shouldn’t be about bills or debts. Life shouldn’t be about working one of those bullshit jobs you really don’t like just to make ends meat, nor should life be about wasting years in a classroom and thousands of dollars on a degree just to be able to own your own house and be considered successful. I hated the way society pushes people into feeling like you have to have a career to be successful, but in a lot of ways that’s how it is.
I understand that for a lot of people it works for them. I’m glad there’s people out there who go to school for eight years to be a surgeon or engineer. I’m just saying that kind of life was not meant for me. I was not meant to waste my time in a classroom to learn a bunch of shit I wasn’t going to use, just to work a job that I’m eventually going to hate because I’m doing it day in and day out for the rest of my life. No thank you, y’all can keep that shit. I just knew that there had to be something better out there.
Ever since I was a little kid, I always had this feeling, this ache whenever my eyes scanned the horizon. I have memories of being in the backyard as a child and I would experience a powerful urge to just go. Just up and leave to see and know what is out there. I would later learn there was a name for that feeling, wanderlust.
I have always felt that I had the very best childhood. I never wanted, I was well fed, did my chores and homework, and had lots of playtime in the summer sunshine and winter snowbanks on the countryside of Sault Ste. Marie, MI, where I was born and raised. My parents divorced when I was eight, but for whatever reason, that wasn’t hard on me. I always felt like I understood that my parents just weren’t right for each other and their divorce neither shocked nor upset me. My mom raised me and my younger sister, Alex. My dad ultimately disappeared up his own ass and I didn’t see him between ages eleven and sixteen. It took some time when he came back, but I eventually forgave him for abandoning us and let him be a part of my life. My dad and I, to this day, have a good relationship. My mom and I on the other hand, are frequently at each other’s throats. We just don’t see the world the same, and it causes us to constantly butt heads with our very differing opinions. She has a hard time seeing me, understanding me, but I take blame for that. I spent a lot of years pushing her away through my depression and teenage rebellion, and all those years of pushing had forced a huge lapse in understanding between the two of us. One I’m not sure we will ever be able to recover, but I hold out hope. That’s something you’ll learn about me, I always hold out hope.
I have to hold out hope, because when I don’t I fall victim to what I call “the shadows”. My darkness, my flaws, doubts, misgivings; it’s my depression. I was diagnosed with chronic depression when I was fourteen, shortly after a friend in my freshman class died in a car accident. I had started self-mutilating - something that took me three years to learn how to control - and would periodically have relapses. When I was depressed, I always felt like I didn’t belong, like I was trapped and drowning, and I felt alone - like no one could save me. What always spun me out of control was never understanding why; where such darkness came from.
I met my best friend, Jess, because of our shadows. She suffered too, and we used that to bring each other back. We saved each other in the long run, and I know I would not be here to this day if it weren’t for her. I love her as if she were my own flesh and blood, but even we have our differences. More than once I let her talk me out of leaving, when my insides screamed to drop everything and just go. I let my dad do the same thing. Taking the burning in my heart as poor, rash judgment. I listened to what they had to say and trusted that they knew what was best for me.
The day I knew, on that bright Fourth of July morning, was the day I finally understood that all of my unhappiness stemmed from settling for a life that I ultimately did not want. I was sick of doing everything the way I was “supposed” to. I called work and quit my job that morning. I told my boss that I quit, that I’m sorry for the short notice and it wasn’t anything to do with him or my job, that it was a personal matter. I almost couldn’t believe I was actually doing it, but I was. I really quit my job on a whim, took my last paycheck and a few personal belongings, and I left.
My dad supported my decision. He didn’t agree with the way I was going about it, but he didn’t make my choice hard on me. My mom spent a week not talking to me. She was mad and worried for me. Eventually my mom came around and reluctantly supported me. She did make it obvious that she thought I was trying to kill myself and that I should seek professional help, but she did start speaking to me again and put on a good face for me despite her worries.
My best friend was steadfast against it, and it almost cost us our friendship. In the end I had to compromise and settle for the fact she would never understand or agree with what I was doing. Jess and I did go to Blissfest - a huge three-day “hippie concert” - the last weekend before I left. I bought a set of beads; they were blue, purple, and silver with a bell on the bottom of them that hung from a clip to put in my hair. Jess helped me pick them out, and I wore them every day to symbolize my freedom and remember my best friend. I didn’t know it at the time, but that weekend would be the last time her and I were ever really close.
I packed the few belongings I was going to bring, along with camping gear and nonperishable food, into my ’86 Chevy El Camino SS. I’d only just bought the car a month earlier from a local gentleman just outside of town. She was a classic and in great shape. I didn’t know when I bought her that I’d be taking her on the greatest adventure of my life, but that car was perfect for taking me on my journey.
I didn’t have a whole lot of friends, but the ones I did have were happy I had made that choice for myself. I can’t say everyone thought I would make it as far as I did, but it wasn’t about anyone else. It was about me, and what I needed to do for myself. I was finally ready to follow the calling in my heart, to finally give in to my wanderlust and take in the world in all of its entirety.
That day I woke up and knew, was the day that my life actually began. Every moment up to that point was me living the life I was told I was supposed to live. A life of settling and mediocrity, a life that I put an end to so I might find my true place in this world. I left in search of who I am and for the life I wanted to live.
I’ll admit that I was afraid, but at the same time I felt like so many people around me were scared enough for me that I didn’t need to be afraid myself. I didn’t want fear to control my life. “I’ll be damned if I let fear keep me from following the calling in my heart”, is the way I thought of it - and once I accepted that, it was almost like not being afraid at all. There wasn’t a point to being afraid. I knew in my very core that I was doing the right thing in spite my own fears, no matter what others thought. I let that knowing in my heart consume my spirit until there was no room for fear or doubt, until I was the essence of the certainty that coursed through my veins. At six o’clock in the morning, on July 16, 2014, I pulled out of my driveway, pointed my car west, and started my journey without looking back.
