Looking For Answers in Road Signs

Ever since I turned 20, it’s continually gone downhill. Granted, I’m only 24, but each year has not gotten any better. Each year is some new worry, confusion, desperation, bad decision, and new hair color. Well, 23 was definitely better than 22 after someone (that someone being my mother) gave me Zoloft. However, I’m nearing 25 now and off the medication and I’m realizing there is no relief around the bend.

It’s like this trip I recently took up the coast. The trip was a disaster but I hoped that it would put some meaning to my life.

I decided to head up to San Francisco for the weekend. I had recently left my job and was losing the heat I once had for L.A. The town had become too familiar and uninspiring. Worst yet, everywhere I turned there was a reminder that I wasn’t able to cut it in this city. The billboards, the cars, the beautiful people that covered every square inch of the city looked at me and mouthed “failure”. I was throwing in the towel and I needed saving. I figured my salvation would come in the form of a good ol’ fashioned drive alone up to San Francisco where I would stumble upon the answers to everything.

I packed a one day’s worth of clothes, fastened my gallon of OJ in the passenger seat and was ready for the world to elevate me.

It’s roughly a 6-7 hour drive from L.A. and I was fully prepared to listen to talk radio the entire time in search of clues. In four hours I learned that eating fast food was bad, that Jesus supposedly died for my sins, and that I had to be careful where I invested my money. Ok, not bad, but I’ve heard it all before and none of the three I take much heed to. I had hopped on the 101 freeway knowing that I would get to my ultimate destination fast and safe. The whole time I was on the 101, I was thinking what it would be like to be driving up the scenic Pacfic Coast Highway. I wrestled with the idea as I passed through Santa Barbara, then San Luis Obispo, then figured what the hell, I’ll hop on the PCH. The view from PCH is amazing. You’re driving over high cliffs with seals and mysterious abandoned houses sprinkled along the way. And that is it. Only seals and the occasional abandoned house. No road back over, no gas stations, no way to get off of this fucking thing. I was stuck behind someone going twenty miles per hour and drove on empty for a half an hour expecting at any minute to become stranded in this personal hell. I had to use all my strength from turning my wheel to a sharp left. As I came up around every bend, I held my breathe hoping I will see a way to certainty, but it never came.

And I longed for the 101.

With the 101 came assurance that I would get to my destination in a timely manner. But with the PCH, after every stretch of nothingness came another stretch of nothingness and the sight no longer became beautiful to me. It made me angry. Relief came when I got to Monterey and I sped back to the 101 as fast as I could. Having extended my journey to San Francisco by another three hours, I arrive into town just as the sun is going down. Five minutes in, my child-like wonderment disipated when I realized I had no idea where I was going to go or why I was even there in the first place. It was a Saturday night and at red lights, I watched from my car window all the happy people exiting restaurants and walking in groups down the street. Laughing, holding hands, pissing in alleys. I wanted to be a part of that. I imagined rolling down the window and saying, “Excuse me guys, can you please tell me why I’m here?” I spent four hours wandering around the town then left. I was rattled with angst and frustration. At myself, at the city, at the ocean, at the happy people walking down the street, and at the damn bellied up seals lazily lying in the sun. What was I looking for and why did I waste so much time and money trying to find it?

This sums up my early 20’s right here.

Wasting time and money trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing.

As I made my way back down the 101 less than 4 hours from the last time I saw it, I concentrated on what I could have possibly gotten out of this trip. No answers rolled down from the cliffsides, came in the form of talk radio, or splayed across the road signs. Instead, I was stuck with this endless road that will bring me back to square one.