Purgatory

I landed in Las Vegas 12 days after my Escape from Suburbia to celebrate my birthday. Between my road trip with Jason and Las Vegs I was stuck in this hell. This … purgatory.

The transition from traveling to arriving home to getting your shit together is the biggest mind f#$% in the world. The world traveler has just come down from the highest of highs and this existence (which can’t be described accurately with any words from the dictionary) suddenly vanishes.

I had absolutely no clue what the hell I was doing. What I was going to do. Where I was going to go.

I knew something was going to happen. I just didn’t know what. I knew something was coming …

But, until I had that moment, my life would play out uncharacteristically dull. And kinda sad.

My days went like this:

11 a.m.: Wake-up.

11:01  a.m. – noon: Turn on my iTouch and check e-mails, facebook, Twitter, play Words With Friends, invite random people to play Words With Friends against me, tool around on the internet and then pull the blankets back up to my neck while I contemplated just what the hell I was going to do with myself during the day.

Noon – 12:15 p.m.: Determine the One Big Thing I could do for the day. That’s right. One. Big. Thing. It could have been anything from paying a bill to going to fill-out a job application at a restaurant to just walking aimlessly through the shopping mall. I was so not motivated to do anything. And, all I saw before me was a void of nothingness. Therefore, I had to give myself One Big Thing to do every day. Otherwise, I didn’t think I could get out of bed.

12:15 p.m. – 3 p.m.: Drag out the One Big Thing as long as possible because my parents aren’t home, my friends aren’t off work and there is absolute shit on the television.

3 p.m. – 5 p.m.: Crawl back into bed. Watch whatever absolute shit is on the television until I fall asleep. Because I am that bored.

5 p.m. – 6 p.m.: Wake-up, wander down stairs (likely with a pout on my face because by then I had hit the pity-party mode), pet the dogs, chat with my parents, eat dinner. Then, after dinner, sit at the kitchen table and stare blankly at the digital clock on the stainless steel microwave, or outside as the sunset gave way to night and the trees changed in color and then disappeared into the darkness.

6 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.: Text Megan. Call Megan. Con her into going out, or having me over because I “just can’t sit here any longer.”

6:15 p.m. – 7 p.m.: Get antsy. I almost can leave. I have a reason to get out of the house.

7 p.m. – midnight: Hang with Megan. Bitch about having to figure out this next chapter. Consume a beer. Or wine. Likely at the bar. Most likely Rockafellas where Jason bartends.

Midnight – 2 a.m.:  Crawl into bed. Watch more absolute shit television. Tool around on my iTouch. Turn off the television. Lay in bed and stare at the dark ceiling, thinking and thinking and thinking until I fall asleep.

2 a.m. – 11 a.m.: Sleep. Dream about being back in Europe.

11 a.m.: Wake-up and do it all over again.

It is  important to note that everyday, without fail, I made sure to remember something from my travels. Most of the time, it was marveling that “oh my gosh, x amount of months ago I was in x hostel, in x city, and man was it something …”

But, I had to do it. To remind myself that I was that happy. That I know feeling that happy again was going to happen again.

Once I landed in Las Vegas, my life changed.