Road trips are one of my all-time favorite pastimes. Adventures on roads less traveled are even more my favorites. Back roads often provide the most inspiring memories, but oftentimes less for the remarkable scenery and landmarks than the company shared between family, dear friends, and special loved ones. The conversations shared range from small talk, to inappropriate jokes, to cherished memories of yesterday, to life altering reflections on Life.
One long and lovely trip down beautiful country roads with spotty cell service and long stretches of barely defiled backcountry, the life altering variety of road trip conversations took place. Too long I neglected my own self-care for the sake of others either too young or ignorant to care. The selfish acts of just a couple misguided souls derailed my entire life.
In our society, it’s far too easy to let a single soul’s ignorance or malevolence harm one’s livelihood, self-worth, or sense of purpose. There’s an overarching theme of passive-aggressiveness, credentialism, and elitism that often greatly hinders or even prevents truly creative and talented people such as myself from truly achieving greatness.
I’ve met countless souls with dreams far more focused and realistic than my own who find themselves discarded and unappreciated. I watch far too many of them suffer as they attempt to conform, as I did for over two decades myself. Some of them simply either shuffle along and get by while many others slowly and painfully waste away as if the passage of time is their slave masters.
But, thanks to a rather hastily planned and free bird approach to road tripping around the borders of civilization, a dear friend and I connected on another level I didn’t think was possible. Suddenly, once disjointed thoughts find new connections through community and the shared experience of wandering back roads often taking unexpected turns and detours out of necessity.
With these trips taken, I finally found myself at some sort of peace, the sort I hadn’t felt in years. I finally knew who I am. So many years I was captive to uninformed opinions and bigoted preconceptions. Upon these long periods of reflection and recreation, while the peace has been far from an interrupted frame of mind, I came much further thanks to some impromptu road tripping within the space of a few weeks than I ever did in over three decades on this earth. This little Phoenix, for better or worse, now flies free!
~ Amelia <3
Originally penned in August 2020 with notable additions and revisions in December 2020.
2 thoughts on “Road Trips”
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There’s an overarching theme of passive-aggressiveness, credentialism, and elitism that often greatly hinders or even prevents truly creative and talented people such as myself from truly achieving greatness.
The solution is perseverance and dedication, as one will, inevitably, reach one’s goals.