I’ve been taking a road trip in my dreams. It starts at Elvis Presley’s Memphis home, Graceland, and then continues on to Nashville, Atlanta, and Savannah, Georgia. All of these places – with the exception of Graceland – are places I’ve been. But I’m not the one taking this mythical journey. Instead, the travelers are a young couple who live inside of a new play I’m working on; a duo who meets and falls in love in the space of a few hours, and who – drunk on whiskey – decide to drive until they reach the ocean, because the girl has never seen the Atlantic, and because, two weeks prior, her mother committed suicide.

The play, tentatively titled Closing Time at Graceland, was originally slated to be just a ten-minute, one-scene piece; part of an evening of Elvis-inspired short plays that a friend is producing this summer. But the more time I’ve been spending with the characters – examining their histories, their hopes and dreams, the way their lives become irrevocably enmeshed – the more I realize that their story can’t be contained within ten pages. Theirs is a story of heartbreak and hope, a story about the choices we make and the lives we almost live, a story that – though it’s uncomfortable to admit – intersects with my own.

I’m currently engaged in the process of reinventing my life, or at least, I’m trying to. I’m looking at everything from where I live, to the way I earn money, to how I evaluate my worth in the world. It is a process that is slow, arduous, and humbling, and some of the questions I’m asking myself are painful ones. But I am determined to travel the distance between the person I’ve always been and the person who I know that I can be. And that road is a difficult one. I am impatient, but I also know that meaningful change doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t come easy or cheap.

Perhaps that is the reason why this new story has taken such a hold of me, and is insisting that I write it. It’s certainly not the most convenient time to begin something new. I’m still very much invested in my play War Stories, and in doing the work necessary to transfer that show – and likely, myself – to New York. And then there’s the pressing need to make money, and the process of trying to sell my skills to potential employers. There are essays to write, bios to craft, portfolios to build, resumes to refine.

I suppose it’s little wonder, then, that detaching from the tedium of research and resume formatting and disappearing into the fictional drama of a passionate love story is enthralling. And perhaps, at this time of profound soul searching and uncomfortable change, I want to look back before I can move forward. Perhaps I want to remember the girl who, at twenty-four, took her own road trip through the Southeastern United States, who wandered through ivy-covered old town squares and dipped her toes in the Atlantic for the first time, and felt like everything she dreamed of was within reach.

Or maybe I’m doing what I often do when writing fiction with parallels to my own life: maybe I’m trying to write my way to a better ending. One that, if not happy, at least offers some resolve.

Whatever the reason this story has taken such a hold of me, one thing is clear: I won’t be leaving Graceland any time soon.

Until next time, friends.