Wild Blog Post

I take myself to the brink.  I carry my desire to just go to a place where I could in fact, just go, perhaps in the hope that I'll actually overcome my addiction to routine and safety.  But I always remain on the brink, my mind guiding the way into the unknown and my body violently repelling that inclination.  Ever since I found it in myself to go beyond the brink that April day back in the city, hop on a train and just go, I've been chasing that same feeling.  At the time it felt almost easy.  Of course, I wanted to vomit and scream and cry all at the same time as I watched everything I had ever known and experienced disappear behind me, but overcoming that part of me that needed to adhere to the known wasn't impossible.

Now it seems like it is.  I've gone from one life of safety to another, and as fate would have it, my choice to leave New York didn't signal a lifestyle change so much as a shift in geography.  I'll find the brink anywhere, somehow willing myself to cross it, but I never do.  I'll ride the plane to twelve-thousand feet, but I can't make myself jump.  I'll book the one-way ticket to Japan, but I always find a way to come back home.  I crave that rush- throwing caution to the wind and putting my own notions of safety and stability at risk just in order to live completely in the moment- to feel truly free.  But I am the gatekeeper to my own desire, and I'm a little too good at my job. 

I make it to the entrance to the Pacific Crest Trail, knowing in my heart that I won't make it more than a few miles before regretting my decision and scurrying back to the known.  Flipping through the trail register, my eyes were arrested by the blue ink pen flourish of a woman named Cheryl.  I wondered about her.  How far was she into the trail? Who was she traveling with?  Was she at all like me, or did she live the life of reckless abandon that I wished for myself?  I adjusted the pack on my shoulders and ground my boots into the sandy dirt.  I turned around and instructed my driver to leave- for real this time.  And I started to walk.

The driver was still there when I returned to the road hours later.