Day 1: Crying down I-70

birds on a wire, over a gas station; somewhere in eastern indiana

My mother called my sister and told my sister I had a meltdown and be nice to me. On account of being back on my own sort of schedule - despite delays - I woke up at 10am to get moving. I unpacked my two main black "dead hooker" duffle bags, removed some more clothes and repacked them...again. Around noon, I was on my way.

Before pulling out of my parents driveway, I wrote a note: "I'm going on an adventure. I will be back. I love you lots and lots" and stuck it to the fridge in the garage. (I wonder if they saw it.) After my meltdown, they both apparently decided I wasn't mentally prepared to go on the trip, my mother told me this morning before leaving for work. "When will I ever be?" I said, as she encouraged me to stay a few more days to get my mind together. Really, all I needed to get was my stuff together - after six months of preparation and packing, the last 3% was driving me mad. And the attitude of peoiple assuming t hat it was all fun and games was all the more frustrating. I need to be more willing to openingly ask for help.  It just seems weird coming from someone willingly giving up their job and securities, but here I am.

I teared up pulling out of the driveway and got about 30 minutes down interstate before I had full blown tears running down my face: A silent sort of crying. I honestly don't k now what it was about. I rarely cry and my friends all know that if they see me crying something is really really wrong. (With the exception of ambulances. When I see all those humans in cars working together to get out of the way of someone in need it just gets me. ...Look we all have our things, okay?) Perhaps I was questioning my intentions and choices. Perhaps I was relieved to be on the way. Perhaps I was sad and scared to be going so far from everything I've ever known. But in just hours it passed. I was nearly through Ohio - a state I thought I was loathe the flat drive through - realizing I was enjoying the drive, even though my car was still doing that shaking thing I'd spent the past seven weeks trying to fix.

Usually I am done after three hours in the car, but after nearly six hours I arrived at my first destination in Indianapolis (to visit my sister and family) aware that I would have been totally content to have kept driving for hour. My sexy orthopedic  pillow sat waiting on the porch. We immediately went to the little carnival across the street with her daughters and now, at 1am, everyone is in bed...and I no longer feel like I'm losing my grip. Whew.