Central Texas is a tinderbox. Driving up the I-35 corridor as the state burns around us it feels more like we are evacuating than going on a planned trip to Oklahoma. There is a dark haze from Austin to Dallas that tricks us into expecting rain, though there is no hope for moisture. It's all very post apocolyptic.
I joke about our "homelessness" and our "unemployment" but am coming to consider that those descriptors are a touch too dark. We have a destination and a plan to get there, complete with a pillow of savings and blanket of kindness. The counterparts of our generation are not so lucky. Either in the midst of the helplessness of job hunting, or hanging on to jobs that seem, at the end of the day, only a way to get the student loans paid, the recession has revealed itself to be a beast that no vorpal sword can slay.
It is the burnt earth around us and the smell of hundreds of homes falling to ruin that make me reconsider my vocabulary. There is no roller coster of potental future and dashed dreams and time is not running out. We are without perminant residence or income, but we are not homeless or unemployed. We are between adventures.
