A memoir: Road Trip

Essay by ashtyson118College, UndergraduateA-, October 2014

download word file, 5 pages 0.0

Ashley Tyson

6/18/2014

Paper #3

Road Trip

! It was an impulsive resolution to the last five years of distance between me and

my brother. He had just completed his enlistment term for the United States Navy and

he was free; free of authority, commitment and structure. I can recall, during his various

visits home, a change in his personality. Even during temporary leave when he'd come

home to visit the family; he would invariably wake up before the sun, schedule each of

his meals and insist on a daily physical workout. I wasn't accustomed to this type of

lifestyle but I remember rationalizing his behavior with positivity. I say rationalize

because I hated my brother being away, and at the time, I couldn't understand his

reasoning for joining the Navy. I despised his new robotic persona; the way he folded

his clothes, his priority for matching and especially his sudden taste for rock music. In

spite of his over-protective demeanor towards me or his infatuation with trapping me

under the covers forcing me to inhale his vile rectal fumes, I missed it. I missed my

pestering, sloppy, erratic big brother.

! I remember feeling indifferent towards him the day he came home. Discomfort

lingered within me, I had questions I couldn't possibly put into words and I yearned for

familiarity. But I realized that my speculation and incognizant assumptions were defense

mechanisms, and, in truth, I felt the very opposite of indifferent; it was a self-imposed

fear. Thus, in a moment of what felt like an epiphany, I decided to suppress my

foolishness in a quest for the truth, so, naturally, I aspired a road trip.

! It was the second day into the new year of 2012 and the Spring semester for

USF was a week away, so...