Moving On

Samuel Robinson
Nov 3 · 3 min read

My name is Samuel Robinson. I’m a twenty-five year old male from Raleigh, North Carolina. When I graduated from UNC-Asheville, May of 2018, I moved to Cape Cod with a former UNCA teammate to enjoy the summer. My first night on Cape I managed to stumble into a work opportunity bartending at a prominent restaurant in Harwich Port, Cape Cod. Ever since then, I have been flirting with the service industry enough to keep the bills paid, while dreaming of a career in music or writing.

Along the way I’ve met scores of incredible people and gathered hundreds of stories to tell, most of which would be better off saved for a rock ’n’ roll biography rather than a blog that may be used as part of a professional portfolio someday.

I’m days away from moving West for the first time in my life.

This plan initially started as an idealistic dream with the (former) love of my life. Her name was Julia and she was a loving, beautiful, gypsy rock ’n’ roll queen. We met working at a restaurant in Raleigh, N.C. around December 2018. She entered my life during the lowest, darkest and druggiest period I had ever experienced and to this day I wonder how she stuck around as long as she did. At the time we met, however, we were almost instantly enthralled in one another.

Julia came to the Cape to visit summer ’19 and ended up skipping her flight home to move in with me and pick up gigs at the local restaurants. The van life plan was our goal that we were working toward. 80 hour weeks all of a sudden seemed like a breeze with the love of my life around and locals being blown away by her talent and beauty.

She ran away on a full moon, Tuesday night. Six planets in retrograde, whatever that means. Van life as an idea, however, remained intact.

Enter John Dillon.

The fockin’ lad. One of the few I’ve met on Cape that I’m sure I’ll be lifelong friends with. He’s also a musician, so he and Julia hit it off when I introduced them. We all dug the idea of van life, so even when Julia disappeared, John and I were still all-in on the trip.

John bought a van in September and we were instantly hyped to get the project under way. I quit my job mid-September and found new housing. I desperately want to travel this country with JD in a big white van and write the next rock ’n’ roll ballad that grips the attention of an entire generation, but I feel far too out of sorts to put my destiny in another man’s van.

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time alone. I’m battling depression and addiction while struggling to let go of things from the past that are no longer in my control. A dream (which will be touched on, likely in tomorrow’s article) led me to wake up this morning (November 2nd, 2019) with an urgent sense of ‘you’re going to sink or swim, and you’re going to do it now.’

Money is tight, and I’m hesitant to hop in a van with no destination in mind and only a few of my belongings. while it sounds incredibly freeing, it also sounds like a potential financial predicament. Something stirring around our chaotic world has planted and groomed a seed within me resulting in a feeling or beckoning toward Denver, Colorado.

I’ve never been to Denver. I’ve never been to Colorado. I don’t particularly like cold weather (though I do fancy my taste in jackets), I’ve never been skiing and I don’t have any sort of work lined up if my journey does cease, momentarily, via taking up residency in Denver. Nonetheless, my current disposition has drawn me toward Denver, Colorado.

From van life with the girl I gave my heart to, to van life with a lad I hope is soon a bandmate, to potentially just me in my dodgy Honda Accord, the journey has evolved significantly before its even begun.

Follow this blog in order to keep up with my journey.

I’ll do my best to post daily and figure out how to add pictures.

One,

SCR