The choruses of unsolicited advice that I should be completing this harebrained adventure with some kind of companion have mercifully begun to fade into the background. I think maybe their chanters have just begun to go hoarse.
My favorite response when people like my distant cousin and her new husband, who are making their romantical cross-country honeymoon in a biofueled, camper-backed Toyota Tacoma (I’m not jealous at all), recommend that I do this with someone else is laden with sarcasm and dripping with self-pitying regret of a life I don’t lead: “Don’t you think I’d rather have someone to go with?” Oh, pity the 25-year-old spinster who’s already given up on love and dating apps. I like to try to make my mom feel sorry for me, instead of recognizing what she’s actually doing: holding me accountable as a responsible solo traveler.
Another option that I favor is the angry feminist who doesn’t understand why men are allowed to do stuff like walk through the wilderness alone for weeks at a time, and people applaud them, encourage them, lionize them, and ask them all kinds of interesting and technical questions designed to spark interest and awe rather than instill blame and fear. The truth is, I do feel this sentiment. This is not just a defense mechanism for attention. However, ins’t the proper response to just do it already, write an award-winning memoir soon to be a feature film starring Reese Witherspoon, and not spend my energy assuring people that I probably won’t be attacked by the hitch hiker that I probably won’t pick up?
The truth is, I’m not sad to be doing this alone, and it’s not because I’m unshaken in my belief that my personal safety won’t be threatened by man or nature. I’m more than happy to be doing it alone. I love seeing people that I haven’t seen for a long time, and then to enjoy long, quiet stretches of time on the highway just listening to the radio, Spotify playlists, audio books, my thoughts, or the sound of my butt atrophying, without the burdens of society weighing on me like they sometimes do, until I’m finally ready to go running back to them with open arms. 17 days alone in a four-bedroom house in the woods with a dog did not drive me insane, though, so I challenge the isolation of the open road to do so.
All this said, I can hardly even be considered to be doing this alone. Between combining legs of the trip with my parents and having dear friends join me throughout, I get the distinct privilege of sharing this trip with the people I love most. I get to share the joys of conversation, shared silence, and carpool karaoke with besties that I haven’t seen in years. Plus, this means that mechanical mishaps in northern Montana turn from being disheartening, solitary episodes to nice, quiet retreats in motels with Dairy Queen for dessert–while mom and dad foot the bill, of course.