The Addiction Takes Hold, Again

There’s a drink called Adios Motherfucker; it was named after me.
This morning I woke up sweaty and feeling suffocated in my sheets. Suddenly, an idea that had been rolling around in my head from awhile took hold and shook me.
GET OUT.
So I did what I had to do, what I usually do when this happens: I obeyed.
And here I am, 300 miles from home, sitting on a lakeshore in Canada. I have no idea what time it is, but the light is fading and a city to the north of me – Summerland, I learned later – is starting to emerge, one star-speck of light at a time. There’s a breeze that is bringing the waves lapping to the shore, and it almost hides the sound of the highway on the hill behind me.
When I finally pressed my foot to the gas pedal in my old beat up Subaru after hours of prep and forgetting things, I felt a relief and a buoyancy that I haven’t felt in a long time. I rolled down the window and screamed. It too was something I’d needed for awhile, but I had been afraid to disturb the neighbors.
I don’t think it says anything good about me that I feel the most real when I am alone. I nearly cried at the joy of seeing nothing in front of me but the open road; nothing next to me but some jerky and my laptop; nothing to do but see how far north I could make it before dark. Suddenly, words that had been locked inside me started to spill out, and I felt waves of inspiration hitting me as palpably as I feel the water of this Canadian lake around my feet.
I am made for this. If it weren’t for the knowledge that I am a European mutt, I would swear that I am from a long-lost nomadic tribe. I feel safer with the wind at my back and the unknown ahead than I do in a bed that I can call my own. I can’t find a part of me that fits in a house. I can’t find a part of me that is willing to give up my freedom for a home. I fight this urge, this addiction, this need, but somehow I can never conquer it, and I’m not sure I want to. What I want is a way to sustain it, to live off it, to bleed it dry, then milk it for more. I want property in third world countries, to know the names of the locals, to explain to others the shape and size of a country they’ve never heard of that I now call my own. I want to be able to scream from the tops of the mountains without wondering if people can hear me. I want to wake up in the morning without feeling like the sheets are trying to strangle me – because I don’t belong to them, they belong to me.

Love and addicted kisses
Morgan