Two Turns : 85 East to 95 South

This last month has been nothing but road trips to places I don't want to be. It is exhausting - more so than any train trek or airport layover. I am tired yet I continue on. We'll be back on the road in a few more days and this one will be a doozy. We are attempting to put each others lives back on track. We have had a breakthrough of sorts with my mom and I've been offered a temporary job. In my eyes, this is the best things have gotten and will ever get with North Carolina. She can move on. I can live. Vice versa. I wish I could say I'm looking forward to going back to life as it was. Let's just say I'm taking a lot of naps and eating regionalized foods. I will no longer have the luxury. Back to rush hour traffic. Back to monitoring milk and gas prices. Back to forward. 

I am hopeful that this will be my last and final road trip. I don't want to rewind.

I hate traveling with my mother. She has to stop. She just has to. She needs exorbitant amounts of sleep. This should be a day trip if that, nine hours tops. I will dread her necessary breaks to peruse antique markets, truck stops and cheap motels. I just want to get it all over with. I will be seeking out my roommate to consolidate our silly storage units. I will be gorging myself in all things home like speciality bagels, Publix spring water and Disney. I will try to dot in the occasional apartment viewing or open house. There really is no plausible reason I can't find a nest by the weekend. I may just settle in and forget about coming back as planned. I expect to come back one last time. I expect to have my dogs, my car, my inanimate things and never look back. That won't be a road trip. That will be the closing of a super long chapter. It will be permanent. It will be swift. Thankfully all I could and would need is gas, milk and paper towel. For my entire life will already be there waiting for me.

Not only will I have mother in tow but two dogs. I can't bring all three because hotels won't stand for it. I can't leave all of them because there is no grandma to watch them. We suppose my sister will be obliged to take the noisiest of the three in exchange for Florida goods and treasures. It'll only be a few days and we'll be back with much accomplished. After then all that remains is the remnants of big mamas house and maybe by Thanksgiving I'll be cooking in my own. I've already turned down the torch and I plan on doing my own thing from now on. Now Christmas as usual, as before, they'll come to me and will reminisce. We'll talk about that one time I went over there and came back and lived off the grid for way too long. Only two turns away so why come? I can see 85 from our backyard and 95 begins when the tags aren't all from the South. People going home. People coming back. People starting over. People taking the two turns.