500 Miles, and beyond

I made five hundred miles by the little cafe at Austin Junction. It was raining, as it has been almost every day for the past ten, and I had a bowl of split pea soup and, from a table in the corner, watched the drops as they fell.
I've been making good time, now. My shins are healed. My feet are strong. The prairie and the rolling bluffs lifted into national forest above Prairie City, and then the forest fell back away by Unity, into sagebrush plains. I've spent two more nights in post offices, without trouble, and I've been making an average of 28 miles a day, and I've made it past a hundred and fifteen mile stretch of near nothingness, and everything is going well.

The most common question that people throw at me is this one: "What made you decide to do this?" And my answer has varied quite a bit. I've never pinned down to a science why it is, exactly, that I'm doing what I'm doing. But I've started to understand a bit better, I think, now that I've had some time to consider, fully.
The driving force out here on the road seems to be divided into two voices. The first is the voice that seeks beauty. The voice that wants to see sunsets and rivers, that wants to see the people and hear their stories. It wants to see the glory of the land, to feel it, to touch it, to breathe it in. It is the voice that makes me sing to feel the breeze on my face. The voice that makes me step gayly in the sun.
The second voice tells me that there is need for a certain repentance. The load that I carry and the pain that I endure, this voice tells me, are making up for the lost chances of my youth. Making up, as best as is possible, for the hours wasted gazing into the television, the computer, and all of the other pits we surround ourself with; the black holes sucking up creativity like light. The video games and the reality television shows. MTV.
And, this voice says, there is need to make up, as well, for all the chances lost. For all the dances that I didn't dance. For all the girls that passed slowly by, within reach, within grasp, while I did nothing, and let them go.
"This step is for Kendra Squires," the voice tells me. "And this step is for every Saturday night you spent alone. Remember this step. Remember this burden, on your back. And learn from it."
Both voices speak of a numbness. Of a quietly creeping numbness that had begun to take its hold. A numbness towards life, towards beauty, brought by the schedule. Brought by the alarm clock, the deadline, the routine, the bells pounding to tell me how to think, and when, and where, and never being responsible for why. The outer edges of my life - both pain and joy - had become smooth, had begun to grow victim to the inbetween. Victim to the mundane.
It was as if I were the frog, sitting quietly in water being brought to a boil, without my knowledge, until suddenly my instinct understood, and reacted, and sent me into the air before my mind could make sense of why.
It is not up to me, nor is it of any importance, to try and distinguish which voice, if either, is the larger or the more important, in my walk. Both have a claim. All that is of importance is the road. The next step, the next mile, and finally, the sea. And when I drink from that distant shore, I can only hope that whatever thirsts have accumulated, that they might be quenched, and that I might be satisfied to return to the world of the schedule and the bell and the television glaring, but with a keener eye to its trickery, and a greater knowledge of its workings, and a larger defense to the numbness.