When this goes out, I’ll likely be on the road to my new life in New York City. These last few weeks have been absolute chaos, particularly the last couple days. In the last 72 hours, I cut my wardrobe by half, cleaned an apartment, packed up my life, shoved all but the barest essentials into a storage shed, and the rest into suitcases, backpacks, and bags. I’m writing this now, in the spare bedroom of my parents’s condo in Northeast Philadelphia with my sinuses clogged from my cat dander allergy.

I do not know how I will sleep tonight.

This is finally happening. Years of delay, some externally caused, mostly my own fear and laziness, are finally over and I’m making the move. It’s a risk. I don’t have a lot of money. I don’t have a job. I have bills to pay. I have a place to live that I don’t have to pay rent for—a rare luxury for someone like me. I have to hit the ground running. Then, I have to keep running.

If I stop, I will die.

For me, death is being shoved back into a shared fabric covered box, moving papers from Point A to Point B. Death is strapping a headset on and calling people who don’t want to be called to push products they don’t want. Death is when I give up, take the “easy” route and give up my dreams, my desire to live by my own means and make stuff. Death is when my brain eats itself trying to survive eight hours a day of labor that can be replaced by a clever script programmer, or an auto-dialer and an answering machine.

I am running now. I’m picking up speed. The road stretches on ahead, where it goes I don’t know, but it’s there and I’m following it. There will be forks along the way. When the come along, I will have to make a decision, but I will keep running. It’s an open road, and I should be able to see any forks before they arrive, as well as any other obstacles to overcome. After all, I’ve overcome the first one. I’ve started. It’s physics.

An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by another force.

I am that object.

Let’s go.

And woe to any force that gets in my way.