3/26/10

When I woke up this morning he was in my bed and it felt good to wake up in the arms that kept me warm all night. There is a man in the seat in front of me with his Sony headphones around his neck. He’s sleeping with his jaw hanging down. I sleep that way too. I find myself on the upper deck of an enormous bus, trees naked with winter whizzing by, exploded rubber and rotting carcasses lining Route 65. I make it sound dreadful but it is actually a beautiful day. The beginning of spring, cold but sunny. No snow, no clouds. The bus is headed toward Indianapolis and then to Columbus where I will be dropped. I started today in Chicago.

This is a trip I have made many times when I was younger but I am still young and the trip is no less tedious. As much as it annoys me, I have fallen victim to the impatience of a generation overwhelmed by speed and technology. The particular ride from Chicago to Columbus, in the past, was always quite painful as it represented my return to a city where I was going to school 7 hours away from some boy that I loved. I gaze out the window and I think about him for a couple of moments. . . but we don’t really know each other anymore. I feel saddened by this but then my nasal cavity becomes overpowered by the ever familiar scent of cow manure and I remember that I love living in the city. Flat farm land, though it is reminiscent of home and should probably bring about feelings of being a young girl in a life that was so easy, makes me feel weird.

Driving through Indiana I can’t help but notice the ridiculous religious billboards every two miles. One of my favorites, “CATHOLICS. . .can always come home” insinuates that home should be somewhere in Indiana if you claim to be Catholic, I would assume in the vicinity of the billboard, and that if you are not Catholic you can’t come home? Really some strange and confusing stuff going on out there in Jesusland.

Anyway, I drift in and out of consciousness for most of the bus ride but when I am awake I am jealous of the road and I want there to be no destination. I want to have paid $40 for a cross country road adventure or at least to be traveling toward the Pacific but I will end up in Ohio and I will see some of my best friends which will be great and also this guy who I thought highly of until he proved me wrong about that and then I will get back on the bus in three days headed back to Chicago where I will spend one week full of regret and hatred and then I will be fine again. I always end up fine.