Life is just a lonely highway
I'm out here on the open road
I'm old enough to see behind me
But young enough to feel my soul
 

"You ain't even lied, Lenny."

I said the words aloud like Lenny Kravitz was in the passenger seat, crooning the soulful words as my tires hummed against the asphalt. My fingers tapped the steering wheel in time to the slow beat. My head nodded and my lower lip crept between my teeth while my mind wandered.

I definitely knew what it was like to be caught between yesterday and tomorrow. Today was never as clear as I wanted it to be. More like a Polaroid taken with a shaky hand. I always thought I would know exactly what I wanted to do when the time came to do it.

And then the time came and I had no idea what to do. I figured out, then and there, that no one has any idea what the hell they're doing. We're all winging it.

I winged it, a while back.

Hard and fast, I leapt out and flapped my feathers. For a little while, very briefly, I soared. I thought I knew what it was going to take to make it. Hard work and sacrifice. Blood, sweat, tears, broken nails,  broken skin, broken spirit.  Days would be long and nights would be longer, but I would be happy once I had satiated the Hunger.

You know that feeling? That raw, clawing, needy ache in the pit of your gut that can't be prayed away, or ignored away or tempted away with facsimiles of what will ultimately make it subside? I had that. I call it The Hunger.

The Hunger feeds on me being able to create, to make music, to sing my heart out, to take words and emotions and force them through a pencil lead onto a sheet of paper and then wrap a melody and a harmony around them and breathe life over them. When I don't have that, The Hunger festers and seethes. It steals from me-joy, happiness, satisfaction. The Hunger is selfish and a ruthless taskmaster.

The thing about The Hunger is that its best friend is The Sadness. The Sadness loves The Hunger, because The Hunger drives me to loneliness. I don't want to do or see anyone; I just need to be doing things to make The Hunger happy. Soon, it's just us three. Me, The Hunger and the Sadness. No friends or family, no loved ones, no one to kiss my forehead and tell me that everything is going to be just fine, I won't die if I don't finish that last bar or figure out what note goes where.

Without realizing it, I'd been living with The Hunger and The Sadness for a long time. Oh, I soared. I winged and winged well. I had money and a following and popularity and things that should make a person like me, who suffers from The Hunger, a very happy person.

What I didn't count on was The Sadness taking over, creeping over me like storm clouds over the sun.

Last night, I was in a dressing room in a random city in a random state-they all start to look the same after awhile. My guitar was next to me, primed and ready for playing. My phone chimed and I glanced at the screen. And then grabbed the phone and looked again.

Hours later, my car and I were packed and I set out to make a long overdue trip. Along the way, my lips were muttering prayers that my brain hadn't written.

I miss you.

Those words were nestled unassumingly between texts from my manager and reminders to myself and requests from venues. They were not demanding or pleading or emotional in anyway. Just those three words. It was enough.

Enough to push through the fog of The Hunger and The Sadness. Enough to clip the wings and bring me to earth. Enough to remind me that, back home, someone was fool enough to have a flicker of hope that I'd realize what I'd left behind and come back.

It was enough to remind me of The Happy.

The Happy is stronger than The Hunger and the Sadness put together. The Happy feeds off of hope and love and positivity, of knowing that someone-even just one person, couldn't stop thinking of me.

I knew I was near home when the desert turned to average city and then average city turned upscale and even a little opulent. It was dusk as I pulled off the well-lit street onto a long driveway that led to a sprawling mountainside home. An understated foreign car sat in the same space it always sat in. I pulled in next to it like it hadn't been months since I'd been there.

I don't want to push you baby
And I don't want you to be told
It's just that I can't breathe without you
Feel like I'm gonna lose control

"Say that, Lenny." I shook my head as I killed the engine. The air was still and calm and uncharacteristically clear of smog.

The sound of a door opening cut through the quiet. Feet encased in cotton and foam house slippers shuffled out of the front door and down the walk. Clad in leggings and one of my t-shirts, she stopped at the driver's side door and smiled.

The Happy-well... I smiled back, then climbed out of the car. My limbs were stiff, my bones and joints popping. She laughed and opened her arms. I fell into them, laughing along with her. It was good to be home.

"You got my text."

"I got your text," I answered, my head tilted toward her. Our lips met briefly, and then became more acquainted in a long, lingering kiss there in the driveway, with the setting sun as a backdrop.