thoughts for the road

Travel's ruined me. In a sense, I'd never ventured outside the lines of comfort, never taught to be curious. I was perpetually blind and blissful, unaware of the thrill I've finally felt. 

Back in October, a friend and I hopped in my car to traipse through Tennessee and Chicago. Those five days were some of the most magical I've lived. It was my first true taste of freedom; exploration at its root, cities seen as homes, memories so vivid I can still hear the songs and see the colors. Upon return, my own home felt subpar, and I cared less for familiarity.

This time included a new car, new friends and cities, but the same kind of freedom popping on my tongue.  I'll never not remember warm, mid-March air and patches of blue bonnets, country songs and kindness, and laughter that trickled on for midwest miles. But I feel it again, the slump of return. Life's just as I left it, but I am not.

The rhythmic rotation of tire treads felt like home. I didn't want it to, but it did. I know the Road is not home. I need consistency, and people to know me. I guess the allure of travel is its rarity, its brevity. Travel ends. You go and you go, but then you come home. What to do when home feels like the in-between? I still want to see more, do more, run and go until yellow lines blur beneath me.

If Travel's taught me anything, curiosity becomes no small feat in the face of normalcy. I've grown so callous towards the towns I inhabit. My mind does not wander and my curiosity does not crawl. Dormant. I feel dormant and dormant's not where I belong.

How to keep asking questions? How to keep fighting apathy? How to find beauty nonetheless?

That's three right there. Three questions. It's a start.

       WWLT: Makeshift - Penny and Sparrow // A Way to You Again - P. B. Adams & Jill Andrews // Take My Love - The Lone Bellow