Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey.

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[TRANSCRIPT]

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Breaker, breaker this is Whiskey Alpha Romeo…officially West of the Mississippi. Now, hopefully I’ll really stand out on these airwaves as the only one with a W-call sign. 

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Just a little joke with myself. 

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If you’re hearing this, please respond. 

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I’m not always on this frequency—I’ve been changing channels a lot this week due to the lack of activity I’ve found on any of them—so if you try to radio back and don’t hear a response, then keep trying. I know I will. 

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There’s got to be more people out there. Maybe not a lot of people have radios, or know how to work them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be found. I’ve mostly been sticking to the major highways and rolling through bigger cities, but maybe everyone had the same idea and decided to retreat into rural life. So I’m gonna spend some time really going through the small towns, stopping, having a look around. That means I won’t have my radio on me at all times, but I’ll always make sure to crank the PA up when I’m out of my car, so I can at least hear something that comes up

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You know, when I first got into my car and drove away from—from where I’d been, it felt like that moment six years ago when Harry and I realized we’d really done it. The feeling of air rushing into your lungs because you’re on the edge of something that you couldn’t predict, but the uncertainty doesn’t matter, because the most important thing is that you’ve left that other thing behind. 

The getting away is the thing. The going on is a problem for future you. And future you has the beautiful freedom of possibility. So how could things ever feel worse than they do in that moment? The getting away is just the beginning, right?

It’s not like that in reality. The getting away is the best part. Because the future just stretches on and on and on—an infinite road leading nowhere. So the point must be to take in the sights as you go. Sure, there’s some interest along the way, but then you’re untethered after so many years of striving. Of scratching and clawing and muscling your way into something resembling a life—a life that is constantly putting your back against the wall because that’s how you like it. And now the road has not a single bump on it and all the trees that line it start to look the same and…

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It shouldn’t have been easier. To live in the aftermath, it shouldn’t have been easier than the before. And it wasn’t at first—there was so much confusion, and the fear that someone would come knocking on our door any day. There was the figuring out how to get the old water pump working and hook up a generator and plant food and raise chickens and fix the roof when it started to leak. But that’s all…

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I mean, how is that different from searching the ground for enough change to buy a hot meal? I was fifteen when I had to first truly fend for myself and, sure, maybe if I’d been fifteen when all of this happened, I would’ve died straight away. I never would have made it past all that rocky road. 

But the rough path felt longer before. And maybe that’s because I’m more experienced, more knowledgeable than I was at fifteen, maybe it’s because we got lucky, I don’t know. I mean, after all, we never got too sick or hurt that we couldn’t fix it ourselves. We were never without shelter or clean water or firewood. So it all felt easier. 

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