Uncomfortable with Ties
Is the road calling or am I just uncomfortable having ties to one place?
If I really think about it, the last time I had anyone or any place I felt truly tied and committed to was almost 5 years ago. A girl I thought would be my life and a place I thought would be my home, or at least my home base. The last time I felt comfortable having ties. And even then I was actively pulling any string I thought could lead me out of that home. It was home, yes, but I had this inexplicable and insatiable feeling that I needed (or maybe just wanted) to go somewhere else, see new things, do new things and work towards a career that let me perpetuate that process. I suppose it’s a fairly common feeling, especially for a “Millennial” stricken with “Wanderlust” and all those other hot buzzwords assigned to my generation. I say both of those words partially in jest, but I also have to acknowledge that there is something different about how my generation views ties and homes.
But I digress. The point is that since I ran away from all that and inadvertently cut all those ties, I’ve lived a live in obsessive chase of plane trips, road trips, out of town gigs, hotel rooms, never completely unpacked suitcases and an overall unsettled existence. I’ve always written it off as a side effect of the career I’ve chosen, and to some extent that’s true, but I’m becoming increasingly aware that maybe it’s a self-created fear of any sort of regularity. In my head a regular life, even when peppered with trips, feels a lot like stagnation. And when faced with any perceived stagnation I’m forced to deal with the shortcomings and uncomfortable feelings I’ve allowed to grow. Feeling like the fear of never finding a person I can consider a tie to again or a home I truly think of as home. Hell, even gigs longer than a couple weeks feel like a commitment to me at this point. Will I be able to build that base again? Especially outside the incubator-like environment of a hometown and college life?
At some point I have to stop using the “I’m on the road too much” excuse. Yes, I would like to always keep that “life on the road” as a part of who I am. But I also have to acknowledge that it’s not everything. I’m not the lone wolf vagabond driven wistfully onward by the winds of wanderlust that I always liked to imagine myself, not entirely anyways. And, the fact is that I miss having ties.
I think it’s a feeling that a lot of us freelancers, especially those in my generation, face everyday. And I’m beginning to come to my senses and realize that maybe it’s something we should be addressing more often.
- GALEN MURRAY -
VISUAL VAGABONDS Owner/DP
