Road Trip Therapy
The life-changing magic of leaving a miserable life behind.
After returning from Iraq in late 2005, I found little solace in anything - except solo road trips. For years, all I had was this brand of 4-wheeled self-care.
Road trips can teach you a lot about life. For example, what’s the biggest window on a car?
The windshield.
If you spend all your time on the road examining everything in your rear-view mirror or the back of the vehicle, you’re not only going to miss everything in front of you, but your likelihood of crashing increases exponentially. Keeping focused on the view through the windshield, everything in the present and down the road, is imperative to success and survival. Bottom line: It’s okay to glance at your past, just don’t stare.
It wasn’t just Iraq that solo road trips helped me escape. In late 2009, my divorce was finalized and I was living miserably alone in Massachusetts. It wasn’t until I flew out to Arizona for a veterans workshop that I truly fell in love with the Southwest. In order to begin healing from another painful chapter in life, from Iraq to divorce, a road trip was the best prescription.
As I made my way down Interstate 95 from New England to Florida to visit my parents and take Interstate 10, which stretches from Jacksonville, Florida to Los Angeles, California. My new job in Phoenix, Arizona was on this same highway. The moment I crossed the Massachusetts state line and left my old life behind, I let out an earth-shattering war cry. I was alive. I survived. And I was physically and emotionally moving on.
Massachusetts to Florida (mostly I-95) and Florida to Arizona (all I-10).
While I wasn’t staring in my rearview mirror at my past, I was doing my best to be vigilant about my own blind spots. Blind spots can get the best of you. If your fears, prejudices, and inhibitions cloud your vision, you will miss the bigger picture on account of these unnecessary and dangerous distractions. In this journey to Phoenix, I had shed everything I owned with the exception of clothes, books, and my laptop bag. I knew how dangerous the blind spots of clinging to trauma could be, and moved across the country accordingly.
Road trips are a physical and mental journey, and this long trek across the continental US was some of the best therapy I could ever get. No judgment, no rejection, no implications; I was free to be me, flying down the road and keeping my heart fixed on finding “home.”
The home that my soul thirsted for, ached for, was somewhere out there. My dried up spirit longed for the refreshment and rejuvenation that the desert so willingly provided. It didn’t sound very conventional to others in my family, who apparently thought I was crazy to have left a desert in Iraq filled with madness to move to another unknown, unpredictable desert where I didn’t know a soul.
Instinctively, I felt that in order to become whole again, I would need to completely open up and expose myself to the unknown, the new, and embrace this chapter in my life with a determined, keen curiosity.
New England to Florida
Like driving down a desert highway in Iraq, I was eagerly searching for signs. As you embrace the new, you become dissatisfied with the old. Your comfort zone, stasis, is death. It’s all too easy to come back to a familiar place or some insular bubble where everyone looks, acts, and thinks like you – the you that existed before the world fell apart. That’s exactly what I didn’t want – but I never had such a luxury in the first place. In my case, my comfort zone was in a rut of depression. I intuitively knew that if I didn’t take action and make drastic changes in my life, my comfort zone would kill me.
With chips, fries, or nuggets in hand, I had turned eating and driving into a delicate art form that could be choreographed with music – and it was. I had my music connected and blaring as a soundtrack for my adventure.
From New England, through anger-inducing traffic in New York City and the enormous slog of driving through Washington DC, I found myself drifting through the Carolinas. Here lies a wounded, unhealed soul with a nasty colonial past much like other Southern, Bible-belt states. Having lived in Florida and Alabama as a child, I could feel the creeping sense that this road trip wasn’t just about processing Iraq or my divorce. It was trauma from day one.
As I zipped past Savannah and crossed over the Florida state line, I felt the first tangible steps of a new chapter in life.
Jacksonville Florida to Baton Rouge, Louisiana
My stay in Jacksonville, was extended by only an extra day. I knew my parents wanted to spend some extra time together, and they were waiting in the opened garage of their house as I pulled into the driveway. We went out and had dinner that night, and talked about the rest of the journey awaiting me that week. They were obviously concerned about how I was doing after the divorce as well as starting over again in Arizona, but I assured them I was happy and that in this leg of the journey, I was already sure I was doing the right thing.
When it was time to hit the road, a new level of excitement hit me. I was now facing the next longer and more rigorous part of my journey: Interstate-10.
With a few thousand dollars saved up and my rent paid for the new apartment in downtown Phoenix, I was ready to roll. My parents walked me out to my overstuffed compact car and hugged me, telling me to stay safe and to call them when I make pit-stops.
After waving good-bye, I made my way toward the panhandle. My drive across the Mathews Bridge into downtown Jacksonville toward I-10 was shrouded with an overcast sky as I felt the weight slowly being lifted from my spirit. I was leaving my past behind and making my way into the unknown, mile by mile, with a renewed sense of joy.
Between Jacksonville and Tallahassee, as in much of the US Southeast, there’s an unforgettable humidity, the smell of trees, freshly mowed grass, the sounds of crickets, and the constant sense that an alligator might be hanging out nearby. The humidity was cumbersome, and I recalled how well I was able to breathe in that arid, crisp Arizona air. I fantasized about the desert as one would over a long-lost love.
The sense that I got in passing Pensacola and into Alabama was somewhat eerie. I recalled moments where I lived in Daphne, Alabama en route to Mobile, and what it was like to grow up in an environment that was rampant with abuse and bigotry.
My paternal grandparents, estranged to me, still lived in Daphne, Alabama. My father had asked, with full knowledge of how I felt about our family’s past, if I was going to stop by and visit them. The thought of it sickened me, and my parents were still aching for their approval. However, I wasn’t as hopeful as they still were that someday their interracial marriage would ever be accepted.
It made me feel pain for a broken world, one that was riddled with bigotry and a looming specter of interpersonal terror. As an adult, I was choosing to draw a boundary line. I knew that I wanted to be happy, and that wasn’t compatible with explaining my humanity away to racists. As I drove intently and peacefully out of Alabama, I was also choosing to move past people who didn’t deserve to be in my life. An act of defiance that I couldn’t make as a child.
Crossing into Mississippi, I was met with a torrential downpour that felt like tears still being shed of the area’s colonial past as well as my own. By this time in my life, I had no tears left to shed over a painful past lived in this part of the South. The tree-lined 1-10 stretch running through the southern part of the state was hardly visible.
Traffic slowed, cars stalled on the side of the highway, and I laughed to myself thinking that even the weather wasn’t progressive in this state. Finally making my way into Louisiana, the rain slowed and the road ahead became clearer.
After caving into my craving for spicy chicken, dirty rice, and biscuits outside of Baton Rouge, I found my hotel, carried my bags into my room, and happily ate alone as I messaged family and friends that I had arrived in overcast, humid Louisiana.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana to San Antonio, Texas
Leaving Baton Rouge began with weather as experienced the day before: muggy, gray, and miserable. But it was happy time for me on the road; I was excited. This wasn’t the prettiest part of the journey, but knowing I was closer to the finish line had ignited exuberance and joy within. It was reminiscent of a time I actually remember being genuinely happy. I couldn’t recall the last time I felt this type of emotion, but it was well before Iraq.
While making my way across the border into Texas, I laughed at the numerous, egregious displays of Texas flags everywhere and recalled my time in San Antonio. Texas is much like a foreign country located within the boundaries of the United States. You see more Texas flags than American ones and every Texas “expat” I’ve ever met outside of Texas has a flag, an armadillo, or a Longhorns sticker just lurking somewhere – and quite possibly a collection of all three.
Upon entry into Houston, I was met with a state of purgatory for all living creatures on Earth to witness: Houston’s traffic. The intertwining interstates, drivers who seem to lose all sense of direction when it begins to drizzle, and an overwhelming sense of ennui and hatred for life sets in when attempting to reach the other side of I-10, getting one the hell out of the city.
Overall, it took me nine hours to get from Baton Rouge to San Antonio. The trip really should have been under seven hours, but that added congestion on the highway left me exhausted; even more so if I had spent a few more hours driving. Stagnation drained me, movement kept me feeling alive.
San Antonio finally appeared and I grimaced at the signs pointing to the old Army base I was stationed at in my first years in the military. It was still sunny outside and after securing my belongings in the hotel room in downtown San Antonio, I meandered over to the River Center near the San Antonio Riverwalk. There were so many memories here.
While I was attending medic and mental health school in my younger days in the Army, we used to come here quite a bit. I was eighteen, still impressionable, yet still headstrong and determined. During my stay in San Antonio, I recalled going to bed late, getting up in the morning and being ready for a company run at 0420hrs. Eating at 0800hrs, getting out of training at 1600hrs, and often getting to bed at midnight – and repeat daily. I had spent nearly a year in San Antonio due to the former pre-requisite medic certification before mental health school, which had an additional clinical component.
While I could wax poetic about sightseeing, food, and the great shape I was in at that age and how my knees didn’t crack then like they do now, I was reminded more so of things that disturbed me while I was here. It was in San Antonio that I got to see corruption among various US Army leaders in full bloom, ranging from sexual assault to racial discrimination. It was merely a taste of things to come for me in Iraq, and I felt naïve for thinking those incidents were isolated.
After grabbing a coffee inside the San Antonio River Center, I walked through the streets outside near the Alamo.
That’s when I heard someone scream, “There’s no basement in the Alamo?!”
It came from a tour group standing outside of the Alamo, and I nearly pissed myself. Growing up watching Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, hearing that line near the Alamo never got old. A woman standing close by heard it as well, and started laughing with me. Out of these hundreds of people swarming the Alamo, we were the only two that laughed. It’s funny how we can sometimes feel so invisible, but a laugh, a smile, a friendly nod can reconnect us, even briefly, to the world of the living. I floated away.
One could walk through so many cities across the world where no one knows your name and for a second, you can be reminded quite easily through a familiar phrase, sight, sound, smell, taste, sensation – in spite of feeling alone and alienated – that you’re part of the world too, and it’s not so lonely after all.
San Antonio, Texas to Las Cruces, New Mexico
During sunrise, I left the La Quinta on Blum Street in downtown San Antonio to make my way toward Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Tower of the Americas appeared lonely, yet stunning as the sun was starting to light up the sky.
There were quite a few memories made here in San Antonio, some good and some bad, but it was a lovely return to a place where I could compare the changes in the eighteen-year-old version of myself versus the one ten years older. Although I had been through my fair share of hellish moments, rollercoaster events, and those bastardly learning experiences, I was pleased to see how far I had made it and that, in spite of all obstacles, I was here and I had survived. Time to keep moving forward.
As I drove past the limits of the city of San Antonio at sunrise and the Bexar County line toward Segovia, the landscape changed to a cool, foggy, almost mountainous ground with a mist gently kissing the hills as I drove past. One of my pit stops was near this area of Segovia which had a gas station, a country store, and diner attached. I acquired my munchies and a few absurd black and white before jumping back onto the highway.
Miles before reaching El Paso, the sky and landscape really open up through the wild and restless Chihuahuan Desert. There are hundreds of miles of road, and this is where I truly began to feel that I was light years away from pain and bittersweet memories. While still in the United States, I felt like I was on foreign soil and my homeland simultaneously. Although I had never lived in the Southwestern US, I felt like I belonged. An unspoken embrace came over me as the warmth of the desert sun. The heavens opened before me here in the West, welcoming me back, and told me to follow the signs to paradise.
Traveling westward, seeing both the US city of El Paso on your right and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico on your left gave a sharp contrast of the two border cities and the lives lived on both sides. On the right with El Paso, it was far more developed, modern, and was home to a large US Army base, Fort Bliss, home to 1st Cavalry Division.
On the left was heartbroken Juarez. The poverty visible even from I-10 was overwhelming. I had friends stationed in El Paso at various parts of their career to include more recently relocated contacts, and they all had something to say about the increasing crime and violence that had besieged Juarez over the past decade.
Crossing the border for any reason was considerably safer years ago. Now, drug cartel violence and corruption was so rampant that it was considered an “enter at your own risk” zone by locals on both sides. Beheadings, kidnappings, and other horror stories reminded me that places like Iraq were not too far away, and we had our own troubles of similar nature on this side of the world in which many also turn a blind eye.
El Paso and Juarez look like a divorced couple forced to live as neighbors. The two cities are separated by a barely motivated Rio Grande and they are so close to one another you could watch someone talking on the phone on their balcony in Juarez from El Paso. Juarez is one of the most dangerous cities in the world and much of its middle class and above have fled with everything to El Paso, with few ever wanting to venture back across the border.
After a twelve-hour stint on the road, part of me wanted to stop in El Paso, but another part of me simply didn’t want to spend any more time in Texas. I had enough of Texas and was more than ready to greet New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment.
After finding another reasonably priced hotel to spend the night, I made my rounds to another fast food drive-thru dinner for the night. I wasn’t interested in spending any time in public, having to possibly deal with anyone looking to bother a woman sitting by herself in a restaurant. I preferred to eat alone in my room, updating friends and family on my whereabouts, having a good shower, and a much-needed full-night of sleep.
As I threw off the comforter and dove into the white blanket, I stared up at the ceiling and smiled.
“Tomorrow is the day,” I thought to myself as I would enter Arizona and begin my new life; in a place I’ve never lived and community that was unknown to me.
Las Cruces, New Mexico to Phoenix, Arizona
The big day arrived and I was up before my alarm sounded. With much anticipation, I packed my bags, grabbed a large cup of soda from a gas station convenience store accompanied with junk food for the drive, and got back on the road to the rest of my life. Adios, Las Cruces, New Mexico. Here I come, Phoenix, Arizona!
As I drove away from Las Cruces, the sun was just starting to rise. I snapped a photo out of the window behind me. The sunrise over the desert was gorgeous and traveling through it felt like I was wandering through heaven. The dry air in this part of the country felt different on my skin; I felt lighter, nimble, welcomed, happy.
Before leaving the state to enter Arizona, there was a Border Patrol checkpoint line backed up on I-10. As I approached the checkpoint, I was asked, with quite the heavy car, by two agents if I was a US citizen. They looked at my car front to back, another agent had a German Shepherd nearby. They looked at me, and said, “Have a nice day.”
My dreams of a new life became more vivid in my mind’s eye as I passed Deming, New Mexico and onto the border of Arizona. My heart started beating faster, butterflies in my stomach went crazy, and a smile overcame me as I passed the line and sign that said “Welcome to Arizona.”
That’s when I let out the loudest, happiest scream. I yelled until my lungs hurt, my heart pounding joyously. It felt like I was crying with happiness for the first time in my life.
The desert may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but from West Texas and on through New Mexico and Arizona, it’s a desert wonderland. To me, this landscape is breathtaking, inspires me to paint, write, do more. Why I didn’t feel this on the East Coast or elsewhere in the world is a mystery to me, but I just know that the desert and I, somehow, speak the same language. We understand the same music of the wind caressing the sand and mountains like blood traveling through one’s veins. It was paradise. My paradise.
It’s amazing how clear my vision had become for a new life simply by listening to my own needs and wants. I had been looking everywhere outside of myself for an answer, for resolution, for justice and wasn’t close to recognizing any sense of peace.
For so long, I turned to temporary illusions of fleeting love, moments, and people. It wasn’t until I listened to my heart that I felt alive again. The pains and horrors of yesterday neither encompassed me nor owned me. Today, I don’t wait any longer for destiny, I create my own path and I decide who I shall become.
As I zipped through Willcox, Vail, and then Tucson, I snapped a few photos and looked out toward the Santa Catalina Mountains sitting warm in the late morning light. All I could feel was gratitude, and I promised myself if there were any openings in Tucson, I would move here immediately.
The drive up the last part of I-10 took me through Marana, Eloy, Casa Grande, and on into Maricopa County at last. My GPS took me through a fairly smooth route that led me to my new apartment on East Van Buren Street in Downtown Phoenix. As I walked through my new, empty, one-bedroom apartment, even on that scorching Phoenix afternoon, I was on cloud nine. Finally, I was home.
The next morning, I wrapped myself in a light robe and went out on the balcony, looking out toward the swimming pool a few floors below. The sky was cloudless, clear and turquoise. The air was warm, dry, and quiet. The sun lit up the pool and sparkled as I took in a deep breath of my new paradise.
A hummingbird then flew toward me on the balcony. As it flew all around me, I observed it. I felt calm, present. Its wings vibrated in infinite circles and got closer to my face, seeming as curious about me as I was about it. My new little visitor hung around for only a few seconds more, then flew into the desert sky.
For the first time since I could remember, I was putting myself, my needs, and my dreams first. My road trip from New England to the US Southwest opened the door to years of healing, an explosion of creativity, and meeting people who changed my life in countless ways.
In shedding most of my belongings and packing up a small sedan to move across the US alone, I hit the reset button on my life. This road trip proved to be not only the space and therapy that I needed when the VA wasn’t there for me, it brought me a sense of peace and a gift of a new life that only I could provide.
As I continue this journey throughout life and the world, I will always be thankful for those moments of wanderlust and solitude found on long stretches of highway through the desert.
This is an excerpt from my book, The Desert Warrior, which chronicled my journey from Iraq to Las Vegas.
