The drive

I write this, sitting in my car in the parking lot of a Starbucks, in Maumee, Ohio. 3 days ago I was leaving NYC to move to British Columbia, Canada. All in all, it’s about a 2500 mile drive. The plan was that I was going to drive, alone, sleep in my car, and upon arrival in Canada would have to quarantine, in a hotel room, for 14 days, ALONE.

Here’s what I know about myself, I hate being alone, and plans make me feel caged. Knowing this, I still thought it was a great idea to do all this alone. I thought that if I had a goal in mind, a goal I’ve been wanting to complete since I was 15, I thought I’d be ok. What I didn’t factor in, is that I’d be alone, with no human contact for almost 3 weeks, I didn’t fully think through that this is covid times, and that you can’t just go. You can’t just leave, go with the flow. Every part of the journey had to be meticulously planned. I love planning, I love and am good at planning, and organizing. But I only like planning for others. Some people are comforted, by knowing what and when they need to do things, some people feel comforted by planning. I just happen to be good at it, but I don’t like it. I’m 30% a pragmatic and 70% a wild child, I like to have a general idea of what’s going on but I don’t like to be told, by a plan, what my next move is. Due to covid, this “trip” was planned so meticulously, down to the down I would stop in, when the next rest stop was, when I would need to get gas. All while driving I was getting more and more bored of myself, I never realized how emotionally taxing it is to drive 14 hours, day in and day out, on you own. The whole drive I was dreading arriving at my destination and having to be by myself once again, for 2 weeks. Before day 2 of driving I had been looking at my arrival as a release, but into my 10th hour driving I realized it wouldn’t be a release at all, it would be what I consider for myself, to be continued torture. Being around people allows me to off load what’s going on in my head, but alone, you just have to sit with in. Around hour 10, on day 2, I started violently shaking, like I’d been standing in frigid weather for days. I started to think that maybe driving in this condition wouldn’t be safe. I didn’t know where I was, somewhere near the North Dakota/Minnesota border. Then tears started rolling down my face, I couldn’t see and pulled over. Emotionally I know that crying is good for you and should be done, without shame, but my brain still makes me feel ashamed and like a child who needs his mommy, lost. I cry very rarely, and am still not used to in, now that it’s happening more regularly. The tears always seem like such a shock to me, like something foreign happening to my body, that no ones warned me of. Every time I cry I think about the movie Smurfs 2, in the movie there are bad smurfs and one starts to cry out of joy, he’s never experienced crying before and he says “ Hackus leaking!!!” Hackus has no idea what’s going on, and that’s how I feel when I’m crying. I can push myself through anything, I have pushed myself to get through a lot, but this time I couldn’t do it, and it made me feel weak. It made me feel like a child. I have traveled alone since I was 9 I’ve been to much worst places, than BC and much worst situations than, driving in a heated car, alone. Why couldn’t I just fucking do it? Eventually I decided to turn around and started the almost 2000 mile drive back to NYC. Now I’m sitting in this parking lot waiting for the Starbucks to open, it’s 6 am.