I wasn’t lost. I was just in the wrong place, trapped in the fluorescent prison of the shopping mall. The bags in my hand felt like weights, the drone of mindless chatter a sandpaper symphony against my soul.
The New York I left behind wasn’t just a city. It was a disease, clawing its way under my skin, tainting my blood with its toxic cocktail of dreams and despair. Each step on the pavement was a surrender to chaos – a willing descent into a world where the air itself pulsed with the frantic energy of ghosts. Some dead, some clinging to the illusion of life. And I was one of them, sick with a hunger New York both fed and starved.
But there were different ghosts in the wilderness too. Memories of campfires shared with strangers, roadside conversations with weathered souls, the camaraderie of a shared meal with those who, like myself, were chasing some elusive horizon. And amidst these moments, a flicker of hope.
The ‘Ad Astra’ philosophy took on a new meaning here. It wasn’t the glittering promise of some distant metropolis that held the answer, but the journey inward. Each mile was a step away from the toxic magnetism of New York, and a step towards unraveling the knot of hunger and self-loathing that had taken root in me.
Nights were spent under the vast, star-speckled dome of the sky. With no artificial lights to dim their brilliance, I felt small, insignificant, and strangely free. The city’s poison began to recede, replaced by the simple awe inspired by nature’s grand design. I’d sleep, dream, and wake with the rhythm of the sun, a stark contrast to the artificially warped time I’d followed before.
The road trip wasn’t just about escaping New York. It was about discovering what lay outside it, and more importantly, what lay within me. I was becoming a stranger to myself, shedding the toxic layers of a life defined by excess and emptiness.
The destination was still a question mark, a flickering possibility on the distant horizon. But it was in the journey itself, in the relentless push forward, that I was beginning to find a flicker of something resembling peace.
