road trip, part two of two

After 23 hours, the speed limit increased to 70 mph, the highways flattened out to a sun-bleached shade of bone grey, and the sky cracked open to let pass the rain clouds.

A windy Florida night gapes around me, midnight blue and humid. And the world seems suddenly very big.

I am grateful to be here. So grateful. For the first time in months, maybe years, I am supported. I am sinking into the musty sheets of my mother's second bedroom, the safety net of all safety nets, overlooking the Intracoastal effing Waterway, and surely that spells paradise. So why am I suddenly overcome by the incontrovertible lonelies?

Answer: It is time to face the big girl music.

Because, maybe she got me here . . . Maybe a confluence of Universal factors stuck a finger in my life and stirred the pot. Maybe the shit hit the fan and I had the brass to make bold moves. But now it's my turn. There's nobody but me in this damned psychic meadow. My choices are being etched in ink. And I'll have nobody left to blame if I fall on my face.

Now comes the hard part. Getting up and writing applications. Studying algebra. Resumes and cover letters. Personal statements. Overcoming crippling self doubt. Then I pack it up and go home (quote/unquote) with little guidance and no guarantees.

One month, two months, three—the difference isn't monumental. Tango would have sucked me back to shore soon enough. My wasted New Yorker of a heart thuds in its shell. Something in me cries out for chaos and corner delis.

I go back to nothing. Jobless, apartmentless and loveless. I go back with guts and hope to make an end run at the pursuit of happiness, but there are no absolutes. Don't get me wrong, I'm going back anyway. For the above stated reasons and then a few. But I know (and y'all know) full well, that there are always alternatives, unhappy alternatives, to that which we close our eyes for all those lonely 2ams in exile.

Hard to explain to anyone, let alone the Internet, that in place of certainty, I've got nothing but good omens. And I'm going on them anyway.