10/23/2006 05:28:00 PM

The Drive to LA

Leaving Washington

As dawn rose up over the cascades in the East, my cell phone broke forth with its alarm, awaking me from a tumultuous sleep. Having been eager for the next day, and knowing that my capacity for achieving proper rest before such excitement was little, I assisted myself with generous libations the evening prior. My plan however, had backfired on me and I awoke to the usual after effects that follow such actions. Stumbling into my clothes, I lumbered outside in a daze and fastened the bicycles onto the back of my Volkswagen Golf - the final pieces to an already over packed vehicle. The morning was crisp and dew clung to every surface. Fall had long since crept back into the Evergreen State though changing leaves were never the signal of its arrival. The day was unseasonably dry however and I thanked my lucky stars that I would be leaving home unescorted by the famous Washington rain.

I walked back inside and finished my preparations for the trip, bidding a farewell to my heart-broken father. I was struck by his outpouring of love and grief at my leaving (an event which I had been witness to no less than four years ago upon my entering college) and felt wretched and sorry for not reflecting the same sentiments towards him. I love my father and was sorry to leave him behind, but I find it hard these days to show emotions or even feel the proper ones at times. It is upon such occasions mostly that I fear I may be a sociopath and am completely unable to experience true human emotion. It is also these same thoughts that remind me a sociopath does not ruminate on such things, so I put my worries behind me and puttered off down the road.

After a short breakfast, JC and I got on the 405 and pushed on south, leaving behind the eternal grey cloud that would hang over western Washington for most of the remaining year and on through spring. The familiarity and safety of my young life was in that cloud. I felt as though it drew its color, shape and form from the memories and experiences of my entire life leading up to this point. I left behind that cloud as I left behind that life - carrying only with me my dreams, and the support of those who loved me in the place of my youth.