Road Trip

 I just returned from a week-long road trip visiting friends in Toronto and Chicago, Liam and Marley. I wanted to go on this trip to see people who mean a lot to me and who both feel far but close still. I really enjoyed seeing both of their lives. They lead such different lives. I was really moved by the love that Liam's friends had for each other. Maybe I just felt confident in Toronto because Liam made me feel welcomed or maybe its because of how these people are or maybe its because I got to escape familiarity, regardless of the why it was very heartwarming and lovely. In Chicago, things felt much more familiar. Saw a lot of people that I had known in Philly, had a conversation with an academic communist and a friend of my ex. Nevertheless, everyone there felt like they chose to be there, they were with one another because that's who they had. In Philly there is this ever-moving social paradigm that can be suffocating. I have very few people in Philly where my relationship with them feels cut and dry; everyone is trying to navigate their place within fluctuating tribes and relationships can change on a dime.

My life in Boston is small. My circle here is like a warm safety blanket that never wants to let me go. I'm really scared about going back to Philly. I tell myself that I'm ready for the stresses of life again, to love and to grow and whatnot, but I feel like a babe in the woods when I'm there, so easily pushed to a place of loneliness and agoraphobia. I think this road trip was a way for me to dip my toe back into the mindset that being in Philly ushers in, one of ambiguity and thoughts. There is an allure to the conditional love I feel in Philly though; the satisfaction I feel when I feel as though I have it is addicting. I feel like I've earned something, that there is something special about me that enriches these people's lives. Were not all just "there". I felt uncomfortable and out of my element on this road trip which was scary but I felt excited by the feeling of experiencing.

I was worried about being alone with my thoughts for that long on the road trip, I was worried about the places I hadn't seen being on fire. I was resistant to driving through Indiana and Ohio because I wanted to live in my ignorant state of being where I had this distant, removed perception of these places. I felt like I couldn't handle seeing them for what they are. They were beautiful. I was driving east on I-90 during golden hour, the sun behind me, passing through soft green grasslands along Lake Erie. They weren't some post-industrial wastelands like I had imagined in my head.