Follow me down my dirt road of crazy

By Shaylin White
Art & Design Editor

All of a sudden, I want my life to be like a country music song. I don’t really know why; it just seems so romantic to me. Allow me to clarify … I don’t want it to be like the songs that go on an on about the time “Grandma died, leaving Grandpa lost and miserable, but wow, what an amazing life they had together, and he’ll be dead soon so they’ll be back together again …” or “I just don’t know what happened to that dog I really loved? Maybe he’s with my truck which was stolen from the job I lost the weekend my girlfriend dumped me and what is this world coming to?” I’m talking about those country songs that remind us of the good ol’ days and empower us, as women, to key his truck if that’s what it comes to. I want to jump in my truck and just start driving (preferably down a dirt road) without a plan or a map, until I find my destiny.

But then I remember that I have two jobs and I have six classes and I have a dog. Well, the dog (although he weighs 145 pounds and gets car sick) should come with me. I mean, what kind of country music song would my life be if my dog weren’t in the passenger seat? Ok, he’s also 40 inches tall at his shoulders, so taking into consideration how tall he is and how much he weighs, he won’t fit in the passenger seat. I’ll have to lift up the seats in the back so that he can ride along. But I can figure all of that stuff out later, when I’m ready to hit the road. Oh, but wait. I have those jobs, and I have all of that schooling to deal with. Maybe life isn’t supposed to be a country music song?

If life isn’t supposed to be what Garth Brooks or Sugarland or Montgomery Gentry are straining their vocal chords to convey to those of us who don’t live on a tour bus, then what is it all about? I have to admit, I don’t even listen to country music. Actually, I don’t listen to music very much anymore. Ever since I got my iPod touch, I can’t stop watching downloaded seasons of television shows on it. I even watch while I’m driving, which I know is naughty and dangerous, but I get bored. So. How am I supposed to figure out what I’m fated to do? I’ve been in college for nearly 10 years now because I haven’t been able to figure it out. However, I do understand that no matter where I’m going, having a college degree is going to come in handy, so I’m very glad that I’ve chosen to stay in school while I seek out the meaning of life.

Shouldn’t this be the time in my life that I am able to forego responsibility in order to be spontaneous and search the map for what will become my reason for being? I mean, I’m single, I don’t have a family or children or a mortgage to hold me down here and I graduate next semester. Maybe my destiny is in California or Wisconsin or New York, Boston, New Orleans, Florida or maybe some other continent. Maybe my dreams come true in Australia and I don’t know it yet because I’ve never been there and because I can’t jump in my truck and accidentally wind up in Sydney. Or maybe, since I am 28-years-old, now is the time that I am supposed to find my significant other, get married, have a child and live the life that my friends are living. They seem to be very happy. What if in the future I find that I have spent these years searching for something that doesn’t exist just to find out that I spent my important baby-making years wrapped up in a search that only leads me to the fact that I should have been a mommy. But I was too busy looking for something.

Life is confusing. The only thing that we can be certain about is that there are no answers. There is not one direction that we can go in, there are hundreds. I may never hit the open road in my truck with my dog, Memphis, behind me. Instead, I may stay here and find the love of my life or my dream job. Or maybe we do hit the road and find our little country-music-song corner of the world. The only thing that I do know is that I can’t possibly be the only one who is asking herself these questions. Can I?