Not Home At Home

There are many lessons I have learned on the road. In Ukraine I paid my first bribe after being thrown in jail for no discernible reason. In Uganda I learned how to ride a motorcycle. In France, I learned French. I fell in love a lot on the road too. I learned how to say goodbye. And I also learned that sometimes it is both easier and better to not bother with goodbyes. The road taught me self-reliance. There was no one to help me change a flat tire in Serbia. I learned to make fast friends. Intense, often painfully brief, friendships bound to end from the beginning because I was always leaving. Over the last five years I have traveled to over forty-five countries. Usually I traveled alone. I’ve grown used to the feeling of being out of place. Of not knowing the local language or customs.

Occasionally though, I go back home. Go back to California to say hello to mom, and check on Grandma, and the few friends I have left there. On my latest trip back home I felt uneasy. Everyone I used to know had moved along in their life in the five years I had been away. They had gotten jobs - good jobs - and cozy apartments. A few of them had even put down payments on homes. Some had kids now. Others had multiple. They found partners and had fallen in love. They had graduated college and made their parents proud. They had lives that I couldn’t relate to in any way.

And what could I tell them? Should I try to impress them with a story of my narrow escape from thieves in Colombia? Or would it be better to tell them about the newest foreign girl that I slept with? Or maybe about the time I got sick and lost in the Atacama desert for three days, just barely crawling out alive? Or maybe they’d rather here that I can now play the guitar? Or that that I write and hope to become an author?

Eventually they ask me, ‘How long are you home for this time.’ The tone of that question is a little more deflated each time it is asked. How could I blame them though. What good is a friend that is always on the road?

I stayed in California for two weeks on my last visit home. On the highway headed north the day I finally left, I felt good again. Back on the road. And that was when I realised that the road is my home now. I know the road. I know lonely nights. I know the constant pinch of running low on money. I know how to make quick friends wherever I am. I know how to leave. It is a strange realization to have. To not have a home base of any kind to fall back on. To be anywhere longer than a month would be so strange now.

I’m writing this now from a farm in Oregon. I have a crush on a fiercely smart and gorgeous girl from Costa Rica. The owner of the farm is a lovely lady and we have developed a nice friendship over the last two weeks. At night we have guitar jams, and the food is always restaurant quality. I enjoy the work too. But on Thursday, I am going to hit the road again. What will I tell them? ‘Ya guys, it’s great here. Thanks for the hospitality….but I’m leaving. Leaving because…. I miss home.’ I miss being on the road.

For the first week on this farm I thought I had found home. Everything felt right. Then, in the second week I felt the pull to leave, again. The pull I always feel after stagnating in one place. I always feel the need to find out what else is out there. This is great, but is it the best? Is it really worth staying here? Should I see where things go with the cute girl here? Should I build friendships? I knew that answer before I asked it to myself.

The road has shown me that around the next corner, there is usually something better. And when there isn’t, there is something far worse or difficult than you ever imagined. But keep going and on some lucky days on the road, you stumble upon nirvana. In some sense, I suppose I am always chasing the dragon. Searching for the next new sunset, the next girl, the next party, the next guitar jam, the next new food, the next country, the next new best day.