There are too many things that I want to do. Who would have thought that at 24 years old, I would be trapped inside of an office? And even worse, the office of a Catholic Church. I, who am not even religious, do not like having to be trapped in a pious room eight hours a day, five days a week. It's been two years since I last left the country, and I need to leave again soon. If I don't, I know I will be doomed.
It's not that I don't value having a job for the last half a year or that I don't need the money, because I definitely do. It's that I have not been this unhappy in a very long time, and I know that the majority of my unhappiness stems from this job and this state. Massachusetts is no longer a place that I want to be. I need to see America. I've explored other countries much more than I have explored my own, and I'm sure that there's something these acres and acres of land have to offer.
I want to explore. I want to cross state borders and take pictures next to road signs and eat at diners in the middle of nowhere. I want endless amounts of mix CD's, singing at the top of our lungs, congested highways, country back roads, open, free space. I need to be alone with my love. I want to feel a sense of independence that I have never had before.
I'm not blind. I know with all of this comes struggle. We may be sleeping in my car, having to stop every few hours, be cranky and angry, and thirsty, and tired. We may get speeding tickets and experience terrible road rage. But all of that is part of the story. Those are all the things that make it worthwhile and miraculous.
I am giving myself thirty more days to get out of here. In thirty days I need to: find a place to live, find a job (preferably doing something I don't HATE), make enough money to pay at least six months rent, sell a good deal of my belongings, and say goodbye to a way of living I have been used to for years on end.
This is the beginning of a pilgrimage.
