New places.

This morning I was driving home on 495, a road I don't take too much. It felt good to be on a new road. I saw a sign for the Mass Pike, the sign read Albany, NY. I thought about getting on. About just starting to drive out west. Having nothing but the shirt on my back, and my truck. Having no destination in particular. How fun it would be to call friends I haven't seen in months or years and be like "Hey, I'm in your state, can I come crash on your couch tonight? Let's catch up. Show me what's fun around here and what you love about this place!" To just continue to drive. To be free. Stop where ever I want. Sleep in my truck in the middle of a field in Ohio. Walk around Chicago and get lost in the beauty of the architecture. So to the Grand Canyon and kayak down part of it just to pay tribute to Christopher McCandless. Go out to Cali, get on a board and just surf. This world is so huge. I want to see all of it. I want to ride up the Eiffel Tower, walk on the Great Wall of China, visit my friend in Australia, and go to Africa and learn from some of the most inspirational people in the world.

But see, I'm sitting here instead, in my bed tonight. I guess there's a combination of two things that kept me from heading West. Fear and a lack of money. Fear i could get over. Money is what worries me. I don't want to be in debt at the age of 21. But then again, I did say I wanted to pay tribute to Mr. McCandless, so maybe I should forget about money. See, I'm just sitting here trying to figure out my life. And I think about how a lot of people don't have as much freedom as I do. Yet I still feel trapped, almost like a slave in some sense.

I'm trying to find myself.
But I think I've already found me.
See, I'm so confused, I'm confused if I'm confused or not.
And if that confuses you, then that's okay.
Because I wrote it and it confuses me.

I'm lost. I've gotten caught up in the things an American man is supposed to.
I want to find a hot girl to have sex with, because I'm foolish enough to think it'll make me happy.
After a tough day, I want to have a drink, because it'll make my problems go away.

I miss the old days. The one's before "Let's grab a beer" and when sex still made me feel uncomfortable.
I don't want to get lost in things that don't matter. I don't want to create my own problems and control my future in the fact that I fuck up the present so I can eliminate a lot of future possibilities because if I don't there will be so many that it scares the crap out of me! Because, then I don't know what I'm gona do. Then I'll have options. And options can be scary.

But I want to be scared. I want to worry so much that I can't stop shaking, because I want to be that free. I want to learn more and more about myself and others. I want to touch as many hearts as I can. I still sit home and think about people in my life. Especially people that I haven't stayed in touch with. I still want to get on a plane and go to Texas, find that girl that wrote to me when I was interning and give her a hug and grab coffee. Hell, maybe grab coffee for a week straight if that'd help her. I still want to go knock down doors that are close to my home right now so I can look at the people behind them in the eye and just let them know that they mean something to me. I want to love so hard that it either hurts like hell or makes me feel like the happiest person in the world. And I know that can change day to day, and I'm learning to be okay with that.

I'm trying to push the meaningless sex, the alcohol, the wasting money and time behind me. I'm trying to look myself in the mirror and be able to say "I love you." I want to figure out what I'm going to do for my future. Do I want to go back to school in the Spring, leave and not have a plan, try to start my own non-profit, or something I haven't even thought of yet. Because figuring out that I have the freedom to do infinite things tomorrow and trying to decided what it is I'm going to do that will make me happy and feel the most like myself; that makes me more of a man than the night I lost my virginity, got drunk, got my license, or the day that I'll graduate from college.

I wish I could walk through this whole process closer to others. But maybe it's not met to happen that way. Good things are born out of struggles. This I know.

My best friend said to me last week, "I feel like one day you're just going to leave, and I'm not going to hear from you until a month later when I get a letter from you and you're in another continent."
You know what, I kind of hope he's right.

I don't ever want to settle.
I don't ever want to let anything or anyone else control my life.
Not even money.
I don't know how I can do that right now, but I'd like to try.

I wish at the end of high school, someone stopped me, looked me in the eye and said, "You know Kevin, you don't have to go straight to college. There's a whole world out there waiting with more possibilities than you could dream of. It's okay to go explore a little."

Hey there,
If you're reading this, know that it's okay to explore a little and take you're own path. Know that I believe in you in whatever you choose to do.

Love,
<3