I’m sitting here on the bed in the hotel room, after a long day of driving. Another five hours in front of me today when I reach my first destination– a couple days with one of my closest friends.

After that, I head East to North Carolina. Why? I am not sure.

It began with a nudge, “Go there.”

You won’t know why you’re going there until you are there.

I’m signed up for a conference, or should I say waiting list of one in the area I attended a few years ago. I will make my way there and wait in the parking lot, for a phone call? I don’t know.

…

Yesterday’s drive was so different than one I made shortly after Bill died. I attempted a road trip to Michigan, with Bill’s ashes alongside. We made it as far as Tennessee.

It was awful. I sobbed for miles and minutes and hours, devastated. I made it to the same friend’s home, and turned back for home. In a way it was successful as I fought paralyzing fear, and won.

This morning I sit in the same town, yet I am no longer the same.

A song came on the radio yesterday, one I can’t remember when I last heard it–likely the 90’s.

I knew the words, they were tucked deep within. I sang and beat the steering wheel with such elation–likely embarrassing the traffic around me. I don’t care.

The road in front of me.

The destination unsure.

Freedom.

I know this girl, the one slowly coming back to life. The one who would move across the states on a whisper from within, and above. The one driven along by this Unseen, yet very seeable, God.

Oh, how I’ve missed her.

…

I bring him along for the journey in a photo, and in my heart. He sits on the nightstand, likely smiling as he watches from a place I’ll make it to one day in the who-knows-when future.