if a road trip is like a ritual

If a road trip is like a ritual, I want mine to carry as much joy, laughter, fun, and adventure as I can possibly muster. I want the road to stretch on ahead of me for miles and miles and miles like a cathedral, vast and ancient, and sacred.

If a road trip is like a ritual I’m marking the road as my rite of passage, my pilgrimage, my baptism into my next chapter, into my new life. As the coast falls away in my rearview mirror, and the life that I once held so close to my heart falls away, I’ll bring my hands to my chest in prayer, bow my head, and thank God for the life that I’ve got to experience, and thank God that it’s over.

I’ll mark the miles as my tires wear down with how many songs I belt out loud over my speakers, alone, driving in my car. How many sunrises and sunsets I watch. How many lakes I swim in and rivers I sit by. How many starry nights I stay up late reading, because I can. How many mountains I stare at in their unrelenting beauty. How many rocks I climb, fields I run through, how many jumps I take into cold water in my new bright pink tube. I’ll live this ritual not by the structures I follow or the passages I read, but instead, by how much I am filled with joy.

Baba Yaga asks, “What shall live? and What shall die?” and for the first time in my life, I have peace, as this life dies before me, and a new one is born.

I pulled the ground out from under me all on my own.

I am ready to begin again.

All for now,

All my love.

Onward.

-m