Taking the Long Way Around

My friends from High School
Married their high school boyfriends
Moved into houses
In the same zip codes where their parents live

But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow
I hit the highway...

February 28, 2007 marks 11 years since I left "home."

I didn't just move out of my parents' house, I left NJ and I didn't look back.

I left with a trunk full of my belongings in my '71 Monte Carlo, the blessings of my mother, and the blatant disowning of my father, and took what would be the first of many 8 hour drives down I-95 to Raleigh, NC. (and later beyond.)

I began a new life, my own life, full of potential to be and do whatever I wanted. I don't think everyone gets a chance like that in life. Or if they do, they chicken out. But if you see the road before you, and it seems so clear and bright, you just can't be afraid to take it. Yes, the unknown is scary. But I think I've always been more afraid of the slow death of the known...

I've learned more about myself in the last 11 years than I think I ever believed I could have when I left.

I learned about and touched and spoke to all walks of life, some I never could or would have just staying in New Jersey. I made fleeting acquaintances and lifelong friends all over the world. I took risks I never thought I could, and experienced things I never thought were possible for me. I had the highest of highs and the most cold rock-bottom lows.

I proved to myself the existence of angels at the depth of one of those lows. Once when I was almost the hands of my own undoing, this angel swept in and saved me from myself, and I will never know whether she had any idea of what she did for me. But just as quickly she was gone, and to this day, (as good as I am at internet searches!) she remains a ghost. Which is a shame, because I miss her, and I would love to see her again just to thank her... But I never again doubted the existence of God.

(And coincidentally, it was proven to me that God couldn't possibly hate gays, as this woman, on a gay-scale of 1 to 10 was "Had David Crosby's child with her wife.")

If you told the me-girl of 11 years ago that she would be here, and who I am this day, you would have gotten the raised eyebrow and probably a nervous laugh.

I'd like to think that 10 years from now if you told the me of today what the future holds, you'd get a confident smile and a nod like, "Yes, of course. I wouldn't have expected any less."

More to come...