If you have a pulse, you know full well that everyone is on a journey these days. Personally, I refuse to stand still on the sidelines in a single static destination (physical or metaphorical) stuck in a rut like a dilapidated four-wheeler spinning its tires in the mud of apathetic sloth and processed gluten consumption.
No. I am no longer holding space for my own unacceptable absence of a journey, and hereby pledge to embark on SOME kind of journey. The only question is, what will it be?
As I see it, there are a few options:
There’s the mindfulness journey, the hair and skincare journey, the self-awareness journey, the sobriety journey, the sexual awakening journey, the weight loss journey, the fitness journey, the fertility journey, the detox-colon cleanse journey, the gratitude journey, the simple abundance journey, the nonviolent communication journey, the Crossfit journey, the self-care journey, and (I suppose) even the Journey journey, in which you ultimately realize that "Can’t Stop Believin” is actually a terrible song and there's no such place as "South Detroit." Ask anyone from Michigan.
Certainly I don't mean to brag or suggest that any of the foregoing journeys are inferior, but my journey promises to be the journey to end all journeys.
First though: what sort of conveyance will propel me on this journey?
There’s the mindfulness journey, the hair and skincare journey, the self-awareness journey, the sobriety journey, the sexual awakening journey, the weight loss journey, the fitness journey, the fertility journey, the detox-colon cleanse journey, the gratitude journey, the simple abundance journey, the nonviolent communication journey, the Crossfit journey, the self-care journey, and (I suppose) even the Journey journey, in which you ultimately realize that "Can’t Stop Believin” is actually a terrible song and there's no such place as "South Detroit." Ask anyone from Michigan.
Certainly I don't mean to brag or suggest that any of the foregoing journeys are inferior, but my journey promises to be the journey to end all journeys.
First though: what sort of conveyance will propel me on this journey?
Surely not my own willpower or quest for meaning. My 2005 Subaru Forrester with 130,000 miles also seems a risky bet. The driver’s side window is totally busted and I have to open the door every time I go to the drive through ATM or espresso stand. The seat belts are peppered with black mold, and there is a giant crack in the middle of the windshield that my dad chastises me to fix every time he visits, to name just a few issues.
I have higher hopes and standards for my journey and refuse to settle for a standard-issue journey.
Don’t worry though, my journey will begin soon, I promise. And when it does, you can be sure I will send post cards.
Thinking about it carefully, I lack the funds, emotional resiliency, and well-regulated central nervous system bandwidth for a super long plane journey right now, too. Particularly with paying customers getting punched in the face, extra baggage fees, TSA going to second base on my boobs, and other hassles inherent in journeying by plane. It's all very triggering, so an airborne journey is out, I'm afraid.
Similarly, I no longer live in a city with reliable public transportation, so that's an issue as well. There’s the public bus, I suppose, but there’s only so far you can go in Juneau. A bus ride in Juneau seems more like an outing or at best an excursion, as opposed to a journey. It’s probably even generous to call it a trip, which has LSD/Jefferson Airplane connotations that are fine if you’re on an “in your own head while pounding a bongo in the desert at Burning Man" sort of journey, which I am not.
I have higher hopes and standards for my journey and refuse to settle for a standard-issue journey.
I’m picturing something between Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, The Iliad, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Thelma & Louise, Easy Rider, On the Road, and Road Trip starring Tom Green and Seann William Scott (a.k.a. the Stiffler of “Stiffler’s Mom” from American Pie), with maaaaaaaaaybe a dash of Y Tu Mama Tambien thrown in? Because there was some super hot sex in that movie, let’s be honest.
While I do not yet know the full scope or nature of my journey, I do have a motto for it: “Gas, Grass, or Ass: No One Rides for Free.”
While I do not yet know the full scope or nature of my journey, I do have a motto for it: “Gas, Grass, or Ass: No One Rides for Free.”
Living by that motto, I will stop along the way for any like-minded journeying souls who will buy me a medium strawberry cheesecake Blizzard at Dairy Queen and roll up a joint for future use on my journey, in exchange for not murdering me en route to the next truck stop along I-90, chopping me up, and putting my severed limbs in a chipper shredder never to be heard from again until a dedicated episode of Dateline NBC catches my cold case killer.
Anyway.
Anyway.
Life is a journey, not a destination. Which is a problem for me at the moment, because like I said, I’m stuck in journey purgatory while half of humanity is on a journey, and the other half is part of a movement.
Don’t worry though, my journey will begin soon, I promise. And when it does, you can be sure I will send post cards.
Come for the journey. Stay for the movement.
