Fear as Red Tape
This is so suddenly real.
10:10am, Friday, January 04, 2008 and I just released Jess’s hand and watched her walk through the gate to her plane.
I returned instantly to the memory of a pair of blue eyes furrowed in confusion and a tight grip around my arm not more than a week ago. “Caleb… why are you doing this?” I remember seeing those eyes glaze in wonder, searching for something in mine as I stared back. “You won’t find it in there.” I said.
Supposedly that’s what Lee Harvey Oswald told his brother just after his arrest for the assassination of president Kennedy. His brother stared into his eyes with I imagine much the same look and Lee Harvey cut his question short. “You won’t find it in there, brother.
I just tapped the coordinates for Connie’s house in New York into the GPS and told it to find my route. Two seconds later I was directed to take an immediate left for the first leg of a total 1,119 mile asphalt carpet ride. I tapped the steering wheel quietly, looking at the screen. I rubbed my eyes… exhaled.
“God…” I muttered to myself. “What am I doing?”
… I sat in the car breathing for a few seconds…
It is so human a thing to accept the familiar and the comfortable. It is normal in every way for a human to embrace what is known, and to nestle into it, knowing that it is safe. To return to it, to run towards it. To find everything that brought peace and stole worries and to surround oneself in that existence.
It is also so very human to drive oneself away from it. To escape, to run, to throw oneself into the unknown. Into what we fear. I blew a long breath through the hands held over my face.
Most people will never leave the familiar.
“I lied you know…” I said to Jess.
“What?”
“When you asked if I was scared… I lied.” As she sat beside me I pulled her arm in and held it close, nestling my head into her shoulder. “I’m so terrified I could puke.”
But I didn’t say what of.
We fear the unknown. I heard in my head. I see a thousand unfamiliar miles of roadway. I see my car breaking down. I see my money running out. I see a winter storm driving me down. I see having nowhere to live and having nowhere to stay. I see myself unable to find work and unable to make money. I see myself beaten and broken and ashamed and I see myself losing this so badly. I see myself failing, I see myself being unable to afford the continuance of my education, bills, taxes, I see never, ever getting to Australia. I see everything.
I see EVERYTHING.
And yes I am afraid as I look down this endless path of pavement. I’m terrified. I’m horrified. I’m shaking.
We fear the unknown. And so we stay in the familiar. Until…
… I looked up. I picked up the GPS and turned it in my hands, letting the glare glance on and off the screen. I breathed in deep, and I released a very weak laugh.
I see Joplin and Webb City. I see Missouri, my family, my friends, I see a decent job with generous pay, I see a place to stay and places elsewhere if something doesn’t work out. I see plenty of support, I see college and extra-curricular, I see easy. I see security and safety and… everything that you’d think would feel like home. And I see myself getting by well enough to maintain, but never to leave. I see myself becoming stuck. And I see myself becoming happy exactly where I am. And what would be so bad about that? What would be so terribly awful about staying put, about sitting down and letting life go and getting a helping hand? What would be so absolutely terrible about that I think to myself as I stare at the road to my right.
Until it’s the familiar that we fear more…
I’m bad with directions; I’m absolutely terrible with directions. And I know it, that’s why I bought this GPS that I’m holding in my hand, that’s why even with it, I made six wrong turns on the way up here. I’m a fool with a roadway. My grandmother chuckled. “Well, lets just hope he doesn’t go off and… break the GPS then!” We all laughed along. I wanted to go outside, take the GPS from my car and shatter it right in front of them just so they could see the point…
I am not my GPS. I am not my gas tank. I am not even my car full of belongings. These things aren’t my life, I am. If it breaks, I’ll make due. If the car breaks down. I’ll deal. If all my belongings are stolen, I’ll go without but I will not stop, I will not forget what I am and upon what I am dependant, upon what I am really, truly dependant.
I will not die here.
I will not die here.
I will not die here.
I’ll eat my own shoes for sustenance just to stay alive long enough not to die here if I have to.
“It’s because I’m insane, Kristin.” Some times you have to wait weeks to get an interview, sign seven thousand documents and have them approved, see a stodgy old guy in the office who drills you on anything and everything you’d ever possibly be capable of doing in America and which of them do you intend to do and how can he know for sure? Sometimes you’ve got to find your visa and get it stamped, sometimes you’d got to pay the parking ticket to get out of the Airport lot and talk to people who know people who know people and sometimes you’ve just got to deal with red tape.
Sometimes you have to swallow it. Fear is just one of those things.
Tags: aussie, Australia, blog, bond, caleb, city, drive, driven, fear, freedom, freemonster, gasoline, grit, horror, human, jessica, life, monsterbox, new, NYC, philosophy, reality, red, roy, run, spirit, tape, terror, travel, will, york
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