last good country

A little more about me

Written in November 2010

When I was twenty-three years old, I rode on a train from Port Henry, New York to Washington, D.C. In the observation car, I met an older woman from South Carolina. Amtrak is wonderful because it provides us with a sanctuary for true conversation. As we talked, I learned she was returning home from the Jazz Festival in Montreal. I was returning from visiting a friend in Vermont.

I spoke in vague terms about how disappointed I was with my life. As we approached Albany I opened up a bit more. It wasn’t that I needed advice, I knew exactly what I needed to do. This woman, who I had never met before, and who had to be in her sixties sized me up almost immediately. She told me the same things I was already thinking.

At Penn Station I switched to the Northeast Regional. It was July 4, 2006 and as we entered New Jersey, I gazed out the window at the fireworks in the distance. I did not want to go back. Anywhere but home. I had a suitcase with a razor, a toothbrush and some clothes. Maybe I could go somewhere else. That’s not what you do, though. I returned.

I was twenty-three, in a bad relationship and hemorrhaging money. It would take another year of bad decisions and heartache before I began to take back my life. Eventually I would get to a better place, but not without a few more rounds of mistakes.

Now, I am older. In October 2010, I tried to move away from D.C. I had a new job lined up in Wisconsin, and I packed all of my belongings into a moving truck. This time, though, somewhere else did not have the same appeal. I had moved out of my apartment. I had quit my job. I had a going away party. I got as far as Ohio when I absolutely knew I had to turn around. But that’s not what you do.

I drove the truck to Illinois and stopped at my parents’ house. I sent emails to friends back in D.C. and consulted a few over the phone.

“It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind,” one of my best friends told me.

“Yeah.”

I had made up my mind, of course. I wanted to go back. It all became very clear to me, that the desire to escape was more about wanting to create my own life. Somewhere else made that easier. Building something new in the same place was harder. Messy. Complicated.

The question that remained was whether I’d have it in me to turn around. To go back. To start over.

When I was a kid I was fascinated by trains. I grew up next to the Illinois Central railroad and the City of New Orleans train made a stop in my town. I had always wanted to ride on it, but that’s a mostly impractical thing when you are six or seven.

Twenty years later, I decided to buy a ticket. I’d take the train all the way to the end of the line. New Orleans. A place I had never been. A nineteen hour journey.

This time, the conversation I will forever remember happened at a bar in the French Quarter, not in the observation car. Once again, though, I knew exactly what I needed to do. Once again, a perfect stranger reaffirmed this. The difference was that this time I’d find the courage to do it.

I returned to Illinois and drove another truck back to D.C. I wanted to go home and I did. Sometimes life is as simple as realizing what you want and doing it. Maybe it’s always that simple, and we make it more difficult when we take some other route. When we compromise ourselves and our dreams.

And so I am back. I tell myself things will be different this time, but I also know that’s not how this works. We don’t become different people overnight; change happens slowly. As a friend told me: you can’t make yourself into a new person, but you can learn to better cope with life. That starts with understanding who you are and being proud of that, no matter your faults or mistakes.

To that extent this is my introduction. My name is Dave Stroup. I live in Washington and write about my life and what is important to me. I write about the city. I tell stories. I take photos. I try my best to live one day at a time. I’m pleased to meet you.