i think i missed the exit

a few weeks ago, i rented a car to drive to new jersey to document a couple surfers. the act in and of itself of renting a car, something ive not owned now in 3 plus years felt strange itself.. something so familiar, something ive had or owned since i was 20 years old.. just the feeling of renting a car here in dc felt strange but also feels right for the point of this story.. the point of going to new jersey was for freaks of nature, a brand that for those who are new here or not connected via instagram, it is a brand that as of last month i am the head of creative & community for… it was about a 3 hour drive and it was a route i had not personally made before. that of one from dc to ocean city, nj.. along the route, i missed my chance of pulling in to the Chesapeake House, a true gem of the highway roads in maryland. prior to that, my drive took me past fort. meade - a military base where for those who live in the mid-atlantic typcially process through MEPS (military entrance processing station) before going off to basic training of their respective service. every enlisted military member does this at some point throughout the country. this though, was not my first time driving by the base.. living this close to it in dc, its passed often on your way to baltimore… but it was however, my first time passing it, while also driving through delware.. which is where i was living as a 19 year old before enlisting in the service, and going through that very meps location..

you see for basically my entire adult life, ive had this weird connection to the state of delaware and the city of dover. a month in to my senior year of high school, my family, more specifically my father was given orders for a new position which meant we had to move from illinois to delaware.. i thought nothing of it.. it was my senior year, all my core classes were locked up.. i for the most part had no trouble making friends, id moved before.. how hard could it be? as soon as we arrived, we would come to learn that due to delaware state laws when it came to school requirements compared to illinois, i was in fact behind when it came to graduating.. and regardless of the fact i was a military kid, there was nothing the school could do about it. to them it was too late to enter core classes already in progress. this lead to the decision being made that i would have to attend a 5th year of school.. it was beyond my control. from that moment on, my father and i’s relationship hit a rough patch.. seeing these signs along the highway for “DOVER xx Miles” was something that stirred up a lot of emotions, ones that when i woke up that morning, i had no idea would pop up…

this roadtrip turned memory line drive through resulted in a lot of thinking. a lot of remember who younger me was. i think we’re all familiar with the phrase usually something along the lines of “would younger me, think current me is cool.” - in this moment, on this day, i found myself asking “would younger me be disappointed in current me?” dark, i know but i think for me, its just what was happening in my mind at the time. it was naturally at this point in the drive where the soundtrack had to be basically all john mayer but.. as it was just a couple days away from its full release, i found myself listening to the already released songs from keshi’s new album “euphoria” the song “texas” had been released and it just became one of those songs that for the life of me, im not sure how it always seems to happens this way but just felt like it was made for you right in that moment. as if the radio was talking back to you.

“Take me back to Texas, take me back to twenty-three
When I ran from nothing and I wanted everything
Racin' down the highway, and I'm pickin' up the speed
Don't know where I'm going, but I think I gotta leave”

these lyrics, while on this highway.. man, i tell ya.. its at this point im in tears.. its barely past 9am.. im two seconds away from cancelling the road trip, taking my exit to dover and trying to retrace the roads i once lived on as a kid. it was weird.. maybe thats not the right word.. tbh, it was hard. it was really fucking tough to see those signs.. i had no idea i would and i had no idea they would impact me like that. the last time i was on these roads, i was 19 on my way from dover to fort meade to enter the military.. my childhood bedroom still intact.. then barely six months later, my dad got orders again while i was in school, my family packed up my room without me and when i saw my parents again, it was at their new home in maryland.. i know you’re meant to move on, i know you’re meant to one day leave your parents home.. but without my input or opinion, my youth was boxed up, shipped away and without having the chance to say goodbye.. in an instant, i would never again have a room inside my parents house. i would never see my childhood bedroom again.

my time in delaware, while all but barely a year and a half maybe combined time, it was very impactful on my life.. i grew up a lot there. i fell i love there. i found a side of me not yet discovered. my weekends were spent driving to the harmony grange hall outside the Delaware campus for scene shows. i got my first and i think only concussion in delaware.. that girl i fell in love with was probably the most beautiful girl in my class.. and i spent my entire senior year nervously saying hi to her.. then one day towards the end of 2004 my mom came home and said “hi.. here’s her number.. she’s expecting you to call her.” - for context, my mom worked at safeway and she worked at the starbucks inside.. i called her, that night we hung out.. then in an instant she was my girlfriend. we discoverd the citizen cope “The Clarence Greenwood Recordings” together. it became “our record” - we would spend hours together in her jeep listening to it.. when i shipped off to basic, we spent the night prior in her jeep crying.. listening to sideways on repeat.. she would come to visit me in texas during school but we could never make it work past that.. i still think about her sometimes.. in 2008 she would come back up because sideways is in this film i really loved called “ghost town” - i never called her.. i just sort of let her live in peace..

all these things coming up lead me to think back further.. this keshi song wasn’t helping either.. but there was no way i was turning it off now..

at this point, its left arm elbow half out the window, right hand on the wheel while the left hand wipes tears from my eyes.. it was a mix of tears of pain and tears of good memories.. from thinking about dustin and brandon, the three of us thinking we were gonna takeover the world as teens.. ignoring every speed sign.. having our first beers together, trying to get high but failing.. falling in love, making fun of each other to discovering emo bands together. how we all thought it was so cool to purposely wear our tees inside out because “we’re not really in to logos” - i first met dustin on the bus the week i moved to illinois.. he had black vans on.. i said “hey i like your shoes” and he invited me to sit at the lunch table with him.. he introduced me to brandon. they both did bmx and made fun of me for skateboarding.. made worse because my parents made me skate with a helmet on.. years later in our adult years, i would be there with dustin when he would kiss for the first time his now wife and mother of their children jessica.. she was there for me as younger me went from buying an engagement ring for a girl to that same girl saying “i dont think i wanna be together anymore” - she hadn’t realized a week prior i had bought a ring.. do you know how embarrassing it is to try and return an engagement ring? ooof.

its strange how a road you drive down can bring up things behind you.. like, you’re literally moving forward but yet the moments you’ve already lived are playing leap frog with your heart and emotions.. i think why i result to wondering if younger me would be disappointed rather than wonder if im cool is i think inside of me is still this strong desire to be the same person i think ive always been. that person is someone who cares deeply about little things. im someone who i think lives with a lot of regret over wether or not ive upset someone. i think a lot about the friendship i had with dustin and brandon and how that just doesn’t exist anymore.. and while i dont mean the speeding down the highway part, i mean the being young and vulnerable with guys who allowed me to be me and called me on my bullshit as we grew up. i think about the kid who didn’t need a lot. i was someone who could skate the same curb for 8 hours, landing no tricks and still having the time of my life. now i spend as much of time as possible wondering about whats next? the war between the side of me that wants to enjoy the now and side of me that is scared of the unknown is strong. its a war im not sure i acknowledge as much as i should.. but yet, i would defend by saying so much of who i am now is a result of those hours on the curb.. i always wanted to be the friend to film everyone else. i wanted to go to the park all weekend to help my friends film. i spent my weekends at concerts with a new kodak disposable every weekend in hopes id get the perfect photo and maybe one day the bands would take me on tour.

i know you can’t be 17 forever. hell, im not even sure id want to be.. on that drive, i thought a lot about what the current me has gotten do in this life.. at that point i was fresh off releasing a short film from being in france, to a couple days away from heading to copenhagen.. as i write this, im just days off of a week long trip to berlin for work.. i think about how in my early 20’s that women didnt wanna marry me and how much it broke me. i think about how dustin and brandon thought i “changed” i think about how i never gave that starbucks girl and i a real chance.. i think about how at 17 i wanted to be my dad so bad that i joined the air force.. and how as a result of that i met ryan.. who fast forward 6 years would put a camera in my hand and tell me “just keep shooting” - its as if all of those moments in my youth were leading to the ones im living now..

for a while i used to talk a lot about how i think life really starts to happen for you when you make a left where you usually go right.. and how taking the long way to the place you’ve been before leads to new discovery like nothing else.. what if those memories i was reliving were now just signs along the road of the new journey i was meant to be on? what if memories are not meant to bring us down but rather meant to remind us of who we can be? what if i was always meant to change? what if i was never met to be with starbucks girl? what if returning the engagement ring saved my life? what if it saved hers? what if this road i’m on, driving past dover where i once was trying to figure out how to use a camera, was meant to encourage me to get to my destination and give that much more effort in the work ahead of me?

our youth is a funny thing.. the world is bigger than we can even remotely process but yet it feels right in front of us at the same time. washington state raised me, illinois turned me in to a young adult and delaware made me realize who i wanted to be..

“Oh, take me homе, I must've gotten lost when I was looking down thе road
But I think I missed the exit. Oh, someone take me back to Texas”

its this part of the keshi song that really hits me.. i think its naturally to sometimes feel like we’re lost.. like we’re meant to be the same person other people thought us to be.. but what if those people who think should be one way, were just scared of never realizing who they were meant to be? maybe “texas” is the place we think we’re meant to be because we’re scared of being anywhere else? i’d like to think that the decisions ive made in my life along the way, ones where maybe at the time i felt like i was lost or had lost my way were just road blocks along the way of a detour to get me back on track? what if i hadn’t even realized i had lost my way?

as chance would have it, as i mentioned i was on my way to photograph a few surfers.. one of them, a 14 year old named Carter - who has been surfing every day since he was 9 years old and is something like 1600 days in to his streak of not missing a single day. as soon as we met up, all of those thoughts of wondering if younger me would be disappointed in me went out the window.. and turn in to, “can you be someone for carter that younger you didn’t have to look up to?” - i had the best afternoon with him and his family and saw a side of the youth of tomorrow, ive not seen so up-close in a long time. to see carter care so deeply about something at the age of 14, it was a reminder that the things i cared so deeply about as a kid, ie; caring about filming my friends, taking pictures.. wanting to be as present as possible within in a scene i cared about about to help document it.. all of those things i cared so much about that caused at times those close to me to be annoyed by.. was something i should have never cared so much about.. because to be so young, and care so deeply is a gift.. and to watch carter, care so deeply about every wave, every chance he gets to surf.. man, that was so great…

on the way home from new jersey, windows down, a pink sunset being painted in real time outside my window as john mayer played on random it dawned on me that…maybe i was exactly where i was meant to be.. maybe driving down memory lane is a whole lot better than being stuck on the side of it going nowhere?

before making it home to dc, this time heading south, i made sure to stop at the Chesapeake house.. and not miss my exit..

in the end, no i don’t really wanna be 17 again.. but maybe it’s a reminder to sometimes check in with yourself and ask yourself, am in still becoming who i one day wanted to be? maybe the mirror of memory lane won’t always give you the reflection you want but you can always can take a step back, refocus and check in again when you find your way again.. and maybe it’s ok to be easy on yourself.. because if there’s one thing i think all of us can agree on its that 17 year old us, would never want us to be hard on ourselves… and on that i’ll leave you with a quote from another keshi song as it retains to being hard on yourself..

“Since you wanna go to war
Let’s see who hurts the other more
You always got something you wanna prove
And I’ve got nothing left to losе
Don’t know what we’re fighting for
I’m tired of going back and forth
You always got somеthing you wanna prove“

me and my new hero carter. may we forever be reminded that who we one day wanted to be is always possible..

thanks for reading. x.

carl.