One thing about visiting my family is that they hold up a mirror to the very worst parts of me, my biggest weaknesses, the things I like to bury down deep and pretend don’t exist. But exist they do, and I’ve been letting them win over the good parts of me a bit too much lately. I’m generally strong, pragmatic, objective, and I think a lot of that came from growing up with an adamant desire not to be like my family. But I’ve been away from them a lot, and it’s good to be reminded of what I don’t want to be. I spent so much time these last few days thinking, look people. Either buck up and deal or make a change. These things are entirely within your control and complaining about the same things over and over will not help anything and will only serve to make me crazier than I already am. And then I realized I could be talking to myself. And I am making myself crazy.

I just need to shut the fuck up already and take control of my life. I am foolishly wasting an inordinate amount of energy complaining about my situation. And being ridiculously insecure. And all of this is completely within my control. Good God, I need to buck up or make a change.

Life be be hard, and the only thing you can do is deal with things as they come. I want easy answers, but I’m not going to get them. So, I need to stop waiting for them. I need to make my own path and stop waiting for some glowy, magical path to show itself to me. Because it won’t.

So, I make a path and I feel some relief, but am I happy? No. I’m conflicted, overwhelmed, stressed, uncertain, I doubt myself, I question the path. I’m at that place, that place I seem to keep coming back to where I’m stepping out into darkness with only faith that I’ll step out onto solid ground.

And I wonder, why do I keep coming to this place? Why am I here, in the dark, questioning myself again? I don’t have the answers. All I can do, right now in this moment, is take a step.

What choice do I have but to keep going? I may fail, I may make mistakes. I’m only human. But why dwell there, on that, on my imperfectness. Why live in frozen imperfection? I sometimes see this glimmer beyond “I must be perfect” that looks like “I can only do so much”. Sometimes I can even almost reach it, even though I-must-be-perfect cliff has lots of jagged edges and I get caught on it and it pulls me back, but if I just tug a little and let my sweater unravel, let it fall from me, let it hang from the pointed rocks on the cliff face and don’t look back for it, just keep going, even though I’m cold and the sweater was comfort and warmth, I keep going and the briskness warms me up and I don’t look back.

And I keep going.

Maybe I don’t have a fixed point right now, but I have forward momentum, and maybe not even forward, but movement of some kind, maybe sideways, maybe up, but I know how to keep going, so I do it.

It’s a little funny, I guess. I don’t have much solid ground, so to anchor me, I hold on to movement. I board planes and take cabs and watch the world go by from train windows. I buy a car. I may not have anything but my suitcase, but now I have a car. And it’s not fixed either, but then neither am I, so maybe I can just take it with me.

I don’t know how it all ends. And then I think, it’s not about the ending. It’s about the being here now. Experiencing this. Not fast forwarding through to see the end credits rolling. There’s no need for rolling credits when we can keep going, when we can take solace in the moments.

So, I’ll keep traveling. I’ll keep going. With my hobo bag, my airline tickets, my car.

I’m not traveling to the end of the road. I’m just traveling.

Right at this moment, I’m on a train, visiting states by looking out the window. We just made a stop in Delaware. Delaware! Now Maryland. I’ve never been either of these places before. They seem pretty, as far as I could tell. I’ve become a nomad, one of those puffy dandelion seeds, floating in the wind, with no real anchor, no place to go home to.

I love traveling, but it’s hard to have no home. I’m certainly used to it. I can’t think of many times in my life when I’ve felt like I’ve had a home, but these days, I’ve taken that to the extreme. I have a suitcase with me, a suitcase where I’ll eventually be flying to next, and no idea where I can put my books. Right now they’re in plastic storage bins. Earlier this week, I had no idea where I would be today.

I was talking to a friend who’s a twin traveler, and she’s declared this to be the year of living on the road. I have no choice but to join her, and for the most part, I have no complaints. In fact, I feel lucky to have the opportunity to go wherever the wind takes me, experience the unexpected joys of having no idea where that might be next.

But, right now at this moment, on this train, I also feel a little lonely. It’s nice to have a place to put your books, a place that’s yours, that’s not a little room with bad coffee and malfunctioning irons. It’s nice not to be all by yourself all the time, eating meal after meal of adequate room service. Alone.

Maybe it’s just being on the train, watching everything go by. I have this empty space inside that wishes for just a tiny bit of solid ground. Just one small handful of soil would be enough.

I know that what I need is patience, to just go with being in limbo, let the hotels do my laundry, and make due without a DVR. I can always catch up with the DVDs later. I should take pictures of the statues in Philadelphia while I can and enjoy the silence. And mostly I do. But even so, every so often, I can’t help the ache of wanting to feel the smallest touch from someone who loves me.