Those of you reading this may or may not know the following
pertinent information about my life and recent events: I quit my job at Barnes
and Noble in Columbia because I was offered a
summer ASM position with The Lost Colony in North Carolina . Quickly following that
development I was offered a two year contract to work as a PA (Production
Assistant) with Hartford Stage in Connecticut .
Two supremely huge happenings, right? You’d think I would have blogged about
them before now, when I’ve already been in NC for a week. Well, friends, I have
tried to blog it out several times but the town I’m living in, Manteo
(pronounced Manny-O; apologies to those of you I told when I thought it was
pronounced Man-tay-O.) is the picture of American small town life. You can
cross the entire town in under 5 minutes, the library is only one room and
Wi-Fi is scarce. In fact, I’m typing this blog in Microsoft Word first and then
I’m going to paste in into the blog page because I’m usually only in a room
with Internet access for a few hours a day and 100% of that time is spent
working on something else. Such is life, I suppose. I suffer for my art and if
what suffers most is the blog, then so be it.
First things first: I left Columbia on the morning of May 4
with all of my worldly possessions (that would fit) crammed into my car and
started the 18-hour solo drive across the Eastern half of the United States
bound for a city I couldn’t pronounce in a state I’d never set foot in. As many
of you know, I’m somewhat of a “world traveler,” at least as far as my family
is concerned. I moved away to go to college, I moved farther away to work while
I was in college, moved even father away after college and then wound up back
at home. Even with all of my travels and a strong inclination toward a nomadic
existence, leaving home this time was hard. It wasn’t just the fact that my car
was weighed down by so much stuff that the wheel wells were rubbing on the
tires, it was looking at my family and knowing that this time was different and
things will never be the same. I can’t quite explain it, but it goes something
like this: every other time I’ve left home it was with a clear return date in
mind with multiple visits planned for the near future. In college there were breaks
from school and if anything really terrible happened (which it did), I could
get home in less than two hours. When I lived in Iowa ,
it was only for two months and by that time I was confident in my ability to
survive on my own in Missouri ’s
hat, plus I was with friends from school. Then, after graduation, I thought I
was really ambitious by moving to Minnesota ,
a staggering 8-hour trip from my nearest relatives. But, just as before, I was
only planning on staying for 4 months. When my contract was extended to 9
months, I think it was the beginning of a permanent transition from being based
in Missouri
to being truly on my own and away from my family. Last year, when all of that
was happening, I rebelled at the thought of true independence and ran like
crazy back into the comforting routine of central MO. My year-long diversion
where I tried such things as working at a bookstore, testing out graduate
school, volunteering as a designer for a church and living with my brother and
his cat was well-timed and absolutely necessary. I don’t think I was ready to
officially leave my comfort zone, but when these two opportunities presented
themselves I felt like it was a sign and the chance I had been waiting for,
because honestly you can only avoid breaking out into the world for so long.
Even so, it was tough to drive away on a cloudy Saturday morning while my
parents fought to hold back tears and I fought (and failed) to do the same. For
the first hour of my drive I kept thinking, “You can turn around right now and
go home and no one will judge you for it,” and “Maybe there is something closer
to home, I haven’t explored all of my options,” but the most prevailing thought
of all, the thought that rode in the passenger seat with my all the way to
North Carolina was this: “My family will always be there for me. I am lucky to
have a rock solid foundation and a place to call home so that I can step
daringly into the world knowing that win or lose I will always be loved and if
I don’t take this chance now, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.” And I
thought back to my last looks out the window at my parents and remembered how
strong they were for me. Neither of them wanted me to leave: my mom didn’t want
to lose her almost daily call at work and my dad didn’t want to lose his Duck
Dynasty watch buddy, but they both understood (and so did I) that I was meant
to go out into the world and experience it and they continually support my
dreams, even if that means smiling as I drove away.
I don’t know what it is about crossing a state
line, but it’s like a reset. New state, new attitude. When I crossed the river
into East St. Louis , Illinois Columbia , Missouri
to Huntington , West Virginia Kentucky I switched to AM and listened to
the full coverage of the Kentucky Derby. It took a fair share of willpower to
keep myself from driving to Churchill Downs just to catch some of the action.
Night one was a uneventful as day one because all I did was get to my room and
relax and sleep. I had originally planned to Couchsurf my way to NC, but upon
the insistence of my grandmother, I opted for hotel rooms to minimize my risk
of being hacked into pieces by a machete-wielding madman/rapist. In the end, she
was right because I was much more comfortable in a locked hotel room than I
would have been on a stranger’s couch. On the second day I drove across the
entire length of West Virginia and on through
to the southeast corner of Virginia to Chesapeake . The last time
I drove through the mountains was a family trip to South
Dakota where all of the mountains looked like “just a bunch of
rocks” according to pre-teen Amy, but as an adult I can appreciate the beauty
of the Smoky Mountains
and the Appalachian Mountains . It was hours of
gorgeous scenery and mildly terrifying steep highways plunging me down, down,
down to the coast. It never occurred to me that the difference in elevation
would be so great, but my ears popped on several occasions and gum was my only
source of relief. Somewhere in the middle of West Virginia I came upon a toll road (my
first!) and shortly thereafter was in desperate need of a gas station so I
pulled into Gary’s Sunoco right off of the highway and after filling up my
tank, walked across the gravel lot, stepped over a sleeping dog, entered the
station, noticed that both bathrooms were out of order, promptly paid for my
gas and high-tailed it out of there. When I arrived in Virginia, my GPS led me
to a gas station right outside of Busch Gardens and very near Colonial
Williamsburg, so even though I’ve never been to those tourist attractions
properly, I can at least say I’ve seen them. Before I reached my hotel, I
caught my first glimpse of water and promptly freaked out. The ocean is not new
to me, but experiencing it like this is. Plus, it meant that I couldn’t go any
farther east unless I rented a sailboat and that indicated that I was closer than
ever to my ultimate destination. I saw seagulls and yachts and bridges galore
and even drove through an underwater tunnel. I sort of wish there had been a
bridge because I was mesmerized by the water and was a bit perturbed when I
realized I wouldn’t be able to look at while I was underneath it. I soon
resurfaced and once again found myself lounging in a comfortable hotel,
relaxing and preparing for day three of driving.
Fortunately,
I planned ahead and day three consisted of only two hours on the road, which
was about all I could take. I drove out of Virginia
and into North Carolina
and through a bunch of little towns until I found myself driving along the
Whalebone. The Whalebone is the land that sits out in the ocean and runs nearly
parallel to the coast of mainland North
Carolina . Between the Whalebone and the mainland is
Roanoke Island, home of the Lost Colony and birthplace of Virginia Dare, the
first English child born in the New World .
This place is lousy with history. I’m sure the world Roanoke
set off a little buzzer in the back of your mind sending you back to fifth
grade when you learned about Sir Walter Raleigh and his lost settlement of Roanoke . Well, this is
that place.
Clearly, I
underestimated the amount of blogging I had to blog so I’m going to pause here
for a moment and update later in the week. Thanks for your support and
encouragement and thanks for reading.
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