Lastly.

In January it was an idea, in May the foundation was laid, and now on June 6th @ 2AM EST at exactly 8930.6 miles it became a reality. Myself and two kick ass friends had just drove around a country in a minivan and had survived to tell people about it. I pulled into my driveway, turned the car off, and sat in the car in the dark silence of my driveway and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. Did this just really happen? Am I home? Am I a different person?

I’ve been home for over a week now and have had time to let this lump digest. People ask me, what’s it like to be home, are you happy to be home…I answer home is reality, not with a good or bad. Home is somewhere that I need to face responsibility, life’s trials, and reality itself. Where I have just come from is a place that seems far away from here, distance wise as well as spiritually. People ask me, “Neil what was your favorite part of your trip?” Really… the best part… the moment I stepped into the drivers of a white Chrysler Town & Country in my driveway in Wolcott @ 3:45AM and never looked back. I usually chuckle, there is no way I can answer that question. I will never be able to. There is not a singular place that I can tell any of you, was my favorite. Each stop had a different impact on my being and my reflection of where I stand in life.

How about this, I’ll tell you what I enjoyed; I enjoyed the freedom of the open road, I enjoyed never knowing what day it was, I enjoyed sleeping in a different state every night, I enjoyed my company, I enjoyed learning, and I enjoyed watching my friends struggle to write their own personal blogs on the way home our final night. Right here at this very moment it showed me that this trip was so monumental in both of their lives that they were struggling to put it into their own words. I watched a blinking cursor on Peanut’s screen from the darkness of the minivan drivers seat for two hours before he wrote more than two lines, I watched in the rear view mirror Adam’s blank, computer lit face as he struggled to put his own thoughts on what this trip meant to him, all in the meanwhile I drove through a cloud of my own thoughts on what had just happened to me.

During my last semester at school I feel as though I really have found myself as a person, discovered what I need to do day to day to keep myself grounded, and realized that (don’t mind the cliché) life is good, actually it‘s fucking great. So now as I am preparing to start work in a couple of weeks and make a “real living”, studying for my boards, and am struggling with the day to day battle of being back home, I know reality can try to take my life away from me, but it doesn’t stand a chance. Feed me the good or bad, I’m gonna fork through you.

What I’ve learned:
1. Travel. Respect nature. Take chances. Say yes. Have no regrets. And lastly trust yourself.

Thanks for reading, I enjoyed writing.

Neil Martin