Mobile Lifestyles

What is it about a mobile lifestyle that has most of us young people hitting the road in enthusiastic droves? A few months here, a year there… even within the same city limits, our homes begin to feel unbearably familiar and stiflingly comfortable, so we pick up and move a mile away so we can breath fresh air. We hop from one temporary situation to the next, each time thinking, “Maybe this time it will feel like home” or “Maybe this time, I’ll stay for a bit.” We saunter from place to place, maybe in search of something utterly unknown to us, or maybe in search of nothing at all. Or a new chance, a clean slate, a fresh start. We always have our suitcases ready, and we never get rid of our boxes, which have gotten so frayed from multiple moves over the years that maybe next time, we’ll have to buy new ones. The smell of cardboard and the thick scent of jasmine incense used to clear out that “empty home” smell become the only things that can connect us from one place to another. But we remain insatiable in our searching, unable to abide rules and regulations, unable to give the same enthusiasm to our once-new friends, unable to remember why it was we came here in the first place.

Is it that we are never good enough for the world, or that the world is never good enough for us?