I can’t shake this feeling.

I feel on edge.
        
                 Restless.
              
                       Bored.
                             
                            Anxious.
　
I am the patient jiggling her foot in the doctor's office. The husband checking his watch while his wife is in the dressing room. The agitated driver stuck in traffic.


Don’t get me wrong, I have a great life.
I have a good family. Good friends. I live in a nice house. I have a job that I usually like, a car, gas in the car, and college coming in less than two months.

What more could I ask for? What more could I possibly want?

Well, sometimes…

I want to leave everything behind. Run away - not from anything, but to something. I want to just keep driving. I want to just keep running.

Until I run out of road. Until I run out of breath.


I’ll toss my phone into the lake. I'll feel elated, free, and foolish. No one would need to come looking for me because I won’t need to be found.

Here’s the deal:

I’m tired of reading about fictional characters having adventures and actually being alive and having none.

I want to go somewhere cold and barren. I want to go somewhere tropical and alive.

I want to explore an underground cave, chase a tornado, hike across miles of ice, ride a helicopter to a gorgeous hidden waterfall.

I want to go rock climbing and cliff diving. I want to go hiking, swim in a warm, tropical ocean, see a gorgeous sunrise, learn how to scuba dive, learn how to surf, swing from a rope into a lake. Lie in a hammock and write a song to the sound of insects and birds. Stand in the freezing cold of the Arctic and wonder why such a desolate, fierce, unforgiving place exists. Dive underwater in a tropical ocean and be aware of the miles of undiscovered world beneath me. Drive a boat miles out to sea and feel the wind tangling my hair. I want to play guitar on a street corner and have people wonder who the hell I am.

I’ll work when I need money and relax when I feel like slowing down. There’s no rush, no pressure, no real commitment. I can stay as long or as little as I’d like.

No one will know my real name, but everyone will be my friend.

Eventually, I’ll decide I want what the world tells me is a life and I’ll settle down somewhere.

I’ll have a million pictures to share. I’ll have a thousand stories to tell. I’ll have a hundred friends to visit.