Head across the vast parking lot. Past the empty spaces once filled with travelers and transients, all gone by the time my phone alarm went off at 8:45 a.m. Past a tractor-trailer taking up several spaces. Past the motel maid who’s just starting her day. 

Enter the lobby and head for the coffee stand. Ain’t much for breakfast options. A few bags of maple and brown sugar oatmeal. Container of hot water. Container of watered down coffee. Two bowls of oatmeal and a cup o’joe consumed. Nobody behind the front desk counter to say goodbye to. Back to the motel room. 

This specific Super 8 has been a refuge of sorts for my wanderings and ponderings over the last few years. It’s always inexpensive and clean at $55-a-night. Good Wi-Fi and clean sheets. All you need, really. Usually I’ll swing in here as the first part of my journey north or last part of the trek south along Interstate 81. 

There have been times I’ve stayed here en route to a funeral or to be home for the holidays or to and from a music festival. The reasons vary as to why I find myself on this property every-so-often. But, the person (me) is still the same — filled with restless thoughts, urgent actions and a unquenched thirst for that lost highway.

Another 12 hours or so left of driving before I’ll be pulling into the snowy driveway at my folks’ farmhouse in the North Country. Over six inches of snow fell upon my hometown a day or so ago. Evidence of the white blanket was seen in social media photos posted of my little sister and her young family. And of them with my parents cutting down the family Christmas tree from the same farm we’ve been chopping one for the living room since we were kids those many years ago.

Whether coming or going, the hotel room remains the same in these parts. Crank the air-conditioning in the summer. Crank the rattling heat in the winter. The endless pavement and silent gas stations, scratchy radio stations and big rigs flying by in the unknown night. It’s all, well, nothing and everything when you’ve been rambling for countless years at this point. Coming or going, the hotel room remains the same.

My mind keeps drifting to what I might see, feel or experience in the next week or so leading up New Year’s Eve. As per usual, no plans for where to be when the ball drops in Times Square (or if anyone will be doing anything anyhow, considering). The debate to stay up north and enjoy what fleeting days I have back at the farmhouse or motor below the Mason-Dixon Line to where my existence has lingered in the almost 10 years I’ve called Haywood County home. 

The mind drifts as to emotions felt when I will sit-down with my family for Christmas dinner in the farmhouse. My folks, little sister, brother-in-law, and my two nieces. Pour the wine. Cut the prime rib. Pass the mashed potatoes. Throw another log in the fireplace in the back den and in the living room. 

I often wonder how many more holiday gatherings like this are left, especially with my dad’s 80th birthday around the corner. Not to be morbid, more so simply truths of the universe we all must face sooner or later. I also wonder about my mom’s health, which has stumbled a little bit in recent months. My little sister may not notice how quickly time passes in seeing them each day, but it’s evident in my handful of encounters throughout the year.

And I wonder about myself in the grand scheme of things. Where do I fit in amid all of this? Going on a decade since I lived in the back bedroom of the farmhouse, eagerly in search of a full-time writing gig somewhere, anywhere. Each time I walk up the back stairwell to that bedroom, I think of all of those lonely nights questioning if the path I was on in becoming a journalist would ever find stability.

The mind drifts to seeing old friends and acquaintances soon enough, whether at the neighborhood bar or greasy-spoon diner, pumping gas in the cold air or maybe in passing at the grocery or liquor store. We’ve all grown up, but the vivid memories of days long gone are always close to the surface of our minds, for good or ill.

And the mind drifts to St. Patrick’s Cemetery, where I’ll pay my respects to the final resting place of my late cousin. Now covered in snow, it was only the past June when we all gathered to say goodbye, myself giving his eulogy in front of a semi-circle of faces that represent many years and chapters of my life. 

Whether coming or going, the hotel room remains the same in these parts. Crank the air-conditioning in the summer. Crank the rattling heat in the winter. The endless pavement and silent gas stations, scratchy radio stations and big rigs flying by in the unknown night. It’s all, well, nothing and everything when you’ve been rambling for countless years at this point. Coming or going, the hotel room remains the same.

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.