You Can't Go Home Again

I read On The Road when I was seventeen. Until that point, I knew I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to travel, and I knew I wanted to live, but, in a way, I didn't know how. I didn't know what it even meant to live, truly and deliberately. Kerouac's words changed everything. I'm writing this as, I suppose, an add on to my second paper, based off of trips that have changed us. In a way, it is hard to envision my life the way it is, without that novel, and Kerouac's narration on his own experiences as he traveled from New York to all over the West Coast.      "I like too many things and get all confused and hung up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anbody except my own confusion." When I read this line, I knew this is what I wanted, in a way. I wanted to be on the road, and I wanted freedom, I wanted moments that I would carry forever.
Two years, later, though, I can say that there is a price to pay for those memories. There are consequences to not truly having a singular home. I long for it all the time. I long for a place to call my own, that will be my foundation. It's hard to have lasting relationships always traveling, as well, as the strain of miles often tears them apart. I am always leaving, as soon as I land someplace. It makes for many long nights, with phonecalls revolving around the same question, "When will I see you, again?" And I never have a concrete answer. There are consequences to the choices we make, I just hope that where we end up is where we were always meant to be.