This lack of freedom is draining me. I sometimes feel everyday here...I lose a part of myself. Monotonous, robotic...so far out of my comfort zone. In four months the opportunity to travel will abound, the road will again be mine, I will regain my femininity. I will be able to wander ALONE. I feel myself rebeling against the system. I feel the captivity driving me to make stupid mistakes. I rode the wrong road, full speed ahead...Funny how falling feels like flying. As I crashed, I felt alive again. The isolation, the fight, the knowledge of self. I will get through this. I have to. Letting go of the road was worse than any breakup. Even though it's only temporary...I am empty without it.

The desert...how I love you. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder...words couldn't be more true. Desert, you are my home. It took me abandoning you in search of great adventure that ended up being far from great to realize that you are the true adventure. You are real. You are life.

Long, lost love

The Army has presented a new adventure for me. I survived the trials and tribulations of basic combat training and have set out on my next journey...AIT. I'm addicted to the gypsy life...always traveling, always free. This newfound captivity has flustered me a bit. However, I'm adjusting...keeping in mind that in 4 months the road will again be my oyster. I miss the road like a long lost lover, like the blood in my veins. I am an empty shell without it. I could never love a man like I love the road. It inhabits every fiber of your being, you sell your soul for it's charcoal gravel. I miss you dear friend. Soon a truck, myself and you will be reunited...untill then...I send my love, living vicariously through the writings of Jack Kerouac and Henry Rollins...knowing soon a new and beautiful adventure awaits...

Gypsy Soul

Life begins when you boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or have been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

I wanted to get more out of life so I must lost my inclination for monotonous security and adopted a fiery, passionate style of life that may at first appear to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience.

We tend to think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. This beautiful madness is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it.

I am here to laugh at the odds and live my life so well that death will tremble to take me.

I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them, "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup.

As the title says, I am here to laugh at the odds and live my life so well that death will tremble to take me. 

Provocation Catalyst II

As I re-read On the Road I am reminded of why it is my soul mate in book form. I feel as time goes on we get more and more disillusioned and more and more afraid to truly seize the day. Where is the life lost in living? Where does that once wild and rebellious dreamer go? I think at times we all need to visit our inner Dean Moriarty and get in touch with that part of us that was once "tremendously excited with life" and race around this mad, mad world testing our limits. 

It seems to me the beat generation had one ideology...and that was life. The fear of death subconsciously follows us all. The greatest fear being that death will come too soon, before we have had the time to do what we've always wanted to do. Heck, isn't it always too soon? The beat generation acknowledged this aversion and did all in their power to experience as much livelihood as they could while they were still alive. They were wise enough to see through materialism. It's no wonder Kerouac presents the beat generation as a "holy" generation. It was a generation liberated by the peril of pretension, materialism and useless dogmas. Instead, they were in constant search for some greater truth that life would teach them.

What truly inspires me is how Kerouac expresses the refusal to miss out on life and a determination to get the most out of the now. I was in awe when I first picked up this book and continue to be in awe of it years upon years later. We only get one life...don't sit on the sidelines...go out and live. Or as another one of my favorite authors Henry David Thoreau  said, "Live deliberately." 

No Apologies

My fatal handicap is nothing has ever come easy for me. It could be the most minuscule, effortless task for everyone, their Mom, Grandma and second cousins. But for me, oh no. This task will take hours upon hours of grueling, laborious effort. Clawing, struggling, striving, bleeding, sweating, crying and barely getting there. Tediously I will review, analyze, reflect while screaming at myself and eventually...I get it.

In example, I have a vast, vast knowledge of philosophy and a decent vocabulary. Digesting this information is seemingly effortless for most. But me? Not a snowball's chance in hell. I had to go to war with knowledge. Highlight, underline, read, re-read, reevaluate and inevitably go insane.

Sometimes I curse at this flaw but at the end of the day it has made me both stronger and wiser. I appreciate all that I have gained because I had to work my ass off to get there and cope with the embarrassment of it being easy for everyone around me and I'm sitting there damn near tearing my hair out. Perhaps I'll never look smooth or suave. I don't think it's in my DNA. I feel my life is filled with moments that mimic the movie Bridget Jones's Diary (pop culture reference, get off my rhetorical nuts!)  I can never be the one to show up on the first day and sync up with everyone else. Instead I fall down a firepole and my entire ass is shown to all of Britain. There are many elements of ridiculous about me but it's all in my charm. ;)

Ramblings

I feel this wave of maturity wash over me, acceptance. I feel whole, alive again. Guarded still, perhaps always guarded and perhaps it is these instances that keep me guarded. I'll take it as a blessing and stomp down the road, taking no prisoners. I know the road holds something amazing, something beyond my wildest dreams. So I am a sucker like Sisyphus and I will continue rolling my rock up that mountain called life. It's a never ending cycle of ups and downs. Would we really want it any other way? Our pain is personal, molds us, defines us and grants us this beautiful gift...perspective. The optimist in me will never die. This optimist is insane, punches adversity in the face and keeps going. I feel that I can do anything as long as I stay in the fight. If being a dreamer makes me foolish....so be it. I'd rather be a fool than aloof and apathetic.