Drifting.
The word probably held more significance than any other in his existence; it came to be the word that not only described his lifestyle, but his state of mind, his character, the man who couldn't attach himself to anything. Others had seen it in him years before, and some had warned him against continuing on in that vein, and he knew they were serious and had a valid point to make.

The drifter.
State to state. Coast to coast. Odd job to odd job. Ready to leave as quickly as he could raise his thumb, and he liked it that way, for every place grew stale after a while, the same sights and same people, the same scraping by (so why not another chance on what the highway would bring?)

On arrival someplace, there would be the initial enthusiasm, of course, the thoughts (carrying something close to relief) that this was a place he could invest himself in, this is where he could get a hold on something. And there were always a few who would believe him, though as he got older, they became the very few. For his story was there in his face, his eyes. In those eyes was no longer the sparkle that amused people and made them generous; instead, it had been replaced by an ongoing film of unwinding highway, that open, "vacant" stare. There wasn't enough warmth in it to attract interest.

In a sense, he had gotten what he had wanted when younger, to be left alone and have plenty of quiet time to himself, plenty of time to think. Except,when he was younger, he hadn't done enough long, hard thinking, to know that this solitary process wasn't always a quiet one; and that there could be just as much turmoil in his head as outside it.

If he pulled into himself for a long enough time, there would be peace, he had thought, but that just showed him how naïve he was. In twenty years you got educated, whether you wanted it or not.

Some people could grab onto something and hang on; it was obvious. They clung to something as if their life depended on it, and perhaps it did. And yet he could never fail to see something absurd in their commitments, and this might have had something to do with a lack of faith in people, and their activities in general; a misanthropic thread in the weave of his character, and one that could surprise him at times with its virulence. But, if he thought about how he had failed in doing this, in "establishing himself" somewhere, doing something career minded, family oriented, then it did nothing but depress him and set him back in whatever he had been doing currently. He had to tell himself to keep pushing forward, that he couldn't become mired in regret, for that swamp would suck him down. He had seen too many men wasting away on regret. Better to keep drifting if that was the only thing he could latch onto.

A solitary existence? Unquestionably. Lonely? Sometimes. To keep pushing on, the continuous, wandering journey, and not trying too hard to make heads or tails of it. Forty years young.

© Mike Blake, 2005 (all rights reserved)