Commentary: On the road to maturity, via Route 66

I recently took a drive almost to the edge of California. Going beyond the borders of Los Angeles County, I crossed over into San Bernardino, made a pit stop in Rialto and drove a few more hours until I reached the Mojave Desert, taking the historic and once-glorious Route 66 for the second half of my journey.

The roads were empty, the temperatures hot yet comforting, like that tingly, engulfing feeling of stepping into a warm car after it’s been out in the sun, baking for hours.

The barren scenery on each side of the route was strangely comforting. The desert looked like one long, flat, crumbling shortbread cookie, occasionally broken up by a cluster of plants and trees.

The railroad in the background was the only sign of life in these parts, but even that was so far in the distance that I felt alone. The nothingness of everything around me was a relief. I had come out here for an assignment, but I had wanted to get away from the noise of the reality I was living in for a while.

I wanted to get away from the pressures of entering into a new decade of age, while being constantly bombarded with the marriages, engagements and baby announcements of the people I know — and do not know — thanks to the wonders of social media.

A few weeks earlier, I had watched a clip of Jerry Seinfeld giving advice to a young fan. The fan had asked him about entering his 30s with a lot of worry and anxiety that everyone around him was getting married, settling down and buying homes.

Seinfeld recalls a story about musicians who land in the middle of a field because of a snow storm and stumble upon a house in which a happily married couple and their kids are sitting by the fireplace having dinner. As they stare, one of the musicians turns to another and says: “Ugh, how can anyone live like that?”

It had made me laugh and also made me think really hard about life paths and how much of an individual choice they are — what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. What most people deem a “normal” life isn’t what feels “normal” to someone else.

The fog of social media doesn’t let us see past this. It is here where an endless game of clicks and likes and shares determines our standing — or at least the one we aim to project — in the world. But in addition to making these choices, it’s also about gaining the ability to feel confident in them.

For it’s one thing to say I’m going to live my life a little differently, and quite another to have the ability to be proud of it.

I am getting older. I felt like the minute the clock struck midnight and another year of my life was added on to all the others, 1,000 white hairs spontaneously burst out like a flash mob on top of my head. I realize I can’t function now without a full eight hours of sleep, a far cry from the nights when I would stay up to do English homework until 3 a.m. and get up to go to school with only two hours in bed.

I am falling behind on knowing who the up-and-coming or one-hit wonders are. But I am not going to miss the years I left behind. I’m not going to miss feeling unsure of who I am or the choices I’m making, especially when they don’t follow the invisible social ladder so many of us feel a need to climb.

In the middle of the Mojave Desert, I met a man whom I was to interview. He lived there, in a town where the population could be counted on one hand. It seemed he was also on a different life path, living in an environment where most people wouldn’t last 24 hours.

“Why do you live here?” I asked him. “What do you like about this place?”

When we weren’t speaking, it was so silent you could hear the hum of a car miles before it passed through these desolate roads.

“Peace,” he said. “You can’t buy that.”

We stood surrounded by nothingness, our voices echoing across the dirt, as the sun began its descent to reveal a magenta-colored sky. There were no cellphone signals, no people, no noise. Life seemed pretty clear in that moment, and I didn’t have any choice but to wholeheartedly agree with him.

LIANA AGHAJANIAN is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose work has appeared in L.A. Weekly, Paste magazine, New America Media, Eurasianet and The Atlantic. She may be reached at [email protected].