Read this if you want to know why I'm on this trip.

It's a rare moment that I have unlimited Internet access at this time of day, so why not finally record the thoughts that whir through my brain nightly? The darkness almost compels reflection; it's when exhaustion takes my body. As I curl into my sleeping bag, I'm left with only my thoughts and the rumbling of the night. Those moments scrub away the perpetually cheerful smile, whose installation is as much a part of my morning routine as brushing my teeth. What's left is a raw sense of fatigue, homelessness, and solitude. These emotions surface like blood from a wound, seeping through layers of bandages until its spread can no longer be ignored. 

This post is as much a catharsis for my troubled mind as a method of sharing feelings with friends, which I rarely do. If it feels voyeuristic to be reading my private thoughts, I'm sorry. And if my language seems extravagant at times, don't fault me; I've always had a flair for melodramatic writing. At least in this case, it doesn't make the emotion any less sincere. 

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A favorite question of people I've met on this trip is "Why?" Why do you plop your ass on a bike seat for eight hours a day? Why are you so young and so far from home? Why the hell do you dye your hair? (Someone asked me that in Wyoming. It's weird, but I promise it's natural). They're all just different forms of the same question, one that I have yet to answer in this blog: why am I on this trip? 

My first response is that it's a test of my independence. I've always considered myself to be fiercely self-reliant, to the point of balking at relationships and mocking those that need someone. It grants me the willpower to go on grand adventures, like this one, alone. I need nobody because I am my own best friend. At the same time, it cripples me emotionally. I have no intense emotions, positive or negative. Everything is just middle-of-the-road. But is that such a bad thing? I can examine situations from a more removed, pragmatic perspective and it lends a sense of calm that's key in difficult situations. Whether that's my virtue or my vice, you decide.

The next thing I say is that, as a college student, I'm in a defining stage of my life. And, at this point, it's like I'm kayaking down the Amazon with ten different paths in front of me. If I don't pick one soon, the current will. And that's not something I'd like to be in someone else's control. I don't know which one to take and that lack of direction is frustrating. It made me passionless about everything I did during my freshman year at Ohio State and my grades suffered accordingly. So I'm on a seventy day break from my academic life to gain any semblance of direction. Mark has spent days of his life trying to convince me that my choice of degree will not restrict my life to one specific path. It's a concept that I'm having trouble grasping. Regardless, I've been doing a lot of research into architecture over the last couple of weeks and it's looking really promising. It's a well-respected, expansive degree with a heavy element of creativity. In Whitefish, MT, I stayed with Richard who's been an architect for God-knows-how-many years. Talking with him convinced me that I at least want to give this a shot. I'm going to schedule some introductory courses for the fall. 

Beyond those two reasons are the ones that aren't necessarily appropriate for conversation with someone you've just met. There's definitely a small "in your face" element directed to the people who made fun of me when I was younger for being scrawny or effeminate or whatever. In a massive fit of irony, those people probably don't even know I'm on this adventure to begin with. I also wanted to improve my social skills with strangers. Don't get me wrong: I'm quite the boisterous social butterfly. But initial encounters used to intimidate me a little and my conversational skills on the phone were disastrous on the level of the bombing of Hiroshima. This trip has really turned things around though. I chat up everyone everywhere I go now, which is the only reason I ever find homes to sleep in for the night. I promise it's never as easy as it sounds when I gloss over it in writing. And my phone skills are at a normal level now. I'm okay with normal. 

It's almost 2 AM now. I was hoping to write a bit more, but it'll have to wait. In the near future, I'd like to capture two feelings in words: homelessness and the excitement of being on the road. Until next time.