[mood| alert]

[music| the pattering of rain on a Tahoe roof at 4 a.m.]

Being homeless is weird.

I keep doing that thing where I wake up and have no idea where I am. A mental carnival ride, tilt-a-whirling into every new morning.

It’s been four days on the road now, brushing teeth in strange sinks and gazing into strange mirrors that bounce back a different reflection under the glare of strange lights. Have I looked like this all along?

I don’t quite yet miss my beachside home, but it hasn’t quite yet hit me that it’s a home that no longer exists.

That sensation of being on holiday, just a short jaunt in Tahoe, still prevails. (That’s where I am presently, by the way- the gorgeous southern bank of the nation’s largest alpine lake, sitting out a freezing rainstorm after coming up from a Moroccan-themed hotspring spa with the weather to match. In between was the 7,881-foot leap over a socked-in Sierra and sprint through Gardnerville and Stateline, Nevada before the zigzagging Kingsbury Grade and Carson Range swooped back down into sweet California. As for tomorrow, we might have to flee into Nevada or Napa for drier and flatter grounds. A snowstorm is coming, and icy slopes are no place for a Prius.)

That it’s all been on U.S. soil and all happened so quickly has helped keep the illusion of vacation alive. But every now and then the thought catches back up with me: I am completely untethered.

It perhaps rang out most strongly from my door jamb, the second I shut it behind me on an empty apartment. I felt instantly different. Dirty, somehow, and wide-open.

In that strange limbo between scrubbing all sign of me from those walls and putting them in my rearview, I wandered the streets of Ocean Beach, just another Traveler, the nom préféré of the intentionally homeless there.

I had accommodation arranged that night at the home of some dear friends, but it was very early, 6 a.m., and that invitation didn’t kick in til evening.

Where to go? What to do? Somehow, the lack of place to belong had stretched out the yawning chasm of time. Counting dollars and cents toward the small café bites that buy access to clean bathrooms only ate up a small part of it.

And even as a paying customer, I somehow felt strangely exposed. Did the workers know I had nowhere else to go? How much I needed them? How much depended on that third refill of tea?

I couldn’t, and can’t, imagine what life is like for those who must eternally fill up that void, no pre-arranged roof to sit under, no matter how many hours of forced public exposure spread out in between.

And that’s the rub of it, I think. Not the lack of a physical dwelling per se but the abject lack of privacy, of the time and space to devolve into sweaty primordial ooze, revel in all the ugly passtimes of the unwatched, tear open the sealed corners of id free of judgement. A place to leave those messy truths behind while you don the smiles and courtesies of society. Keeping up appearances sounds exhausting for a reason.

The Travelers must be reminded of this every time they’re called crazy for exposing the world to all their queer tendencies. The same ones the rest of us conceal so neatly inside of our boxes.

A backpack is no match for a house, leaving hardly any room to carry around personal secrets, and all of this strikes me every now and then, as I gaze into yet another new mirror with differently tempered glass and wonder how many more new reflections of myself will be returned along this journey.

[mood|sentimental]

[music|the beatles-don’t let me down]

First entries are weird, and just a little nerve-wracking.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to say.

Hi. My name is Bridget, and I’m about to do something crazy.

About three months ago, I decided I would pack up all my belongings and leave this slice of California heaven. Leave it for the only thing I figure can top a yearly average of 72-and-sunny and a two-block walk to the crashing Pacific: The World.

Over these next few months, I’m hoping to follow inspiration around Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

Of course, I wasn’t alone in making this choice. If the universe were knocking any louder on my door, the thing would’ve flown off its hinges.

In a matter of weeks I found myself with no job, no relationship, and sitting on a monthly lease, with a small-but-usable sum of savings and friends on every continent outside of Antarctica. Even my daily horoscope kept broadcasting big trips, big changes and big rewards on the horizon. What else was I supposed to do?

It’s been a busy three months, to say the least. There was the small matter of packing (more on that later), finding storage, finding a new–and portable–job, taking a crash course in how cell phones and digital storage can be used on the move, and actually moving out of my apartment, as well as the logistical heavy lifting of finding a budget, contacting friends, contacting family, and saying goodbye to Ocean Beach, California’s Last Authentic Beach Town, beautiful Eden of old hippies, salty surfers, and new-age weirdos all converging upon the sea and the Sunset Cliffs.

And, as someone who considers herself a writer, I knew I’d be documenting this whole thing anyway, so there was also the matter of starting this blog, no matter how futile it may be to scream into the Void. (Hi mom and two other people who stumbled upon this by accident!)

As far as charted course, I started off with a zippy plan (“something like five continents and 10 countries over seven months,”) and have a fortuitous route picked out; one that would allow me to ease into the whole thing with the comfort of a more-or-less predictable budget and itinerary of international friends so generously willing to help me along the way. But lately, I’ve been thinking about that route, and thinking it involves a little too much of my own design.

Ambition is a wonderful engine, but without a cool splash of patient curiosity, it’ll run you red hot past all the minutiae that makes the whole thing worthwhile in the first place. And when you make time for gratitude, life tends to take you where it will, not where you will. And isn’t that the beauty of it all?

So I set off on this journey instead with a clutch of benchmarks and safe spaces, and lots of space in between for my plan to fall through the cracks.

If you stay prepared for anything the world will present you everything, and you may actually learn something from it if you keep your eyes and mind open.