Go Somewhere.

Travel is essential people, and here is why.

If you never get out of your little world, you can never progress beyond it. If you're never exposed to options, you never know you have them. This is the problem with my hometown.

The majority of people there are absolutely terrified of leaving there. A day trip to Atlanta is huge. Panama City. Jacksonville. Hell, Tifton is an occasion because they at least have a mall. Though, if you want good stuff you have to go to Valdosta or Macon ... Albany in a pinch.

When I am in Fitzgerald, inevitably I run into someone I should know. Usually this meeting includes some awkward variation of Mom asking me whether this person and I were in the same class in school while I struggle to recall who or what this person was to me twenty years and about ten lifetimes ago.

Then this person rescues me by going into painful detail about our close friendship and how much fun we had that time at that bar on the edge of the county that would let absolutely anyone in when we were with those other people I don't remember. This is a person who has never turned a page in their life.

And it doesn't matter who I run into. If they're around my age and are still in Fitzgerald, they have never changed a thing about their lives. It's like they've been reading the exact same book for decades so they're still very involved with the story and still remember all of the characters and plot twists, while I finished the Fitzgerald book twenty years ago and have poured through a dozen others since.

My recollection of my Fitzgerald days is like my recollection of Huckleberry Finn. I remember the basic story line. I could have an intelligent conversation about the underlying themes, But I can't recall any characters other than Huck, Jim and I believe there was an aunt involved. And people, I read that book eight times. I only lived in Fitzgerald once. (A very long once, but still.)

Another thing that gets me about the Fitzgerald For Lifers is their fear. When I end up talking to them and they ask what I'm doing and they find out I live in New York they get wide-eyed and ask questions like, "Do you really like it there?" "Isn't the subway scary?" "Isn't there a lot of crime?" "How do you deal with all of those people?" Usually there is a story about how a cousin or a brother went to New York once and stayed in Times Square and saw a show and went to Macy's and how it just seemed so crazy to them.

And I realize, that the sadness I feel when I think about their lives and how awful it must be to live in Fitzgerald is most likely the same type of sadness they feel when they think about me living in New York.