Dan was hitchhiking a few years ago. Lots of young people did that back then. Of course that habit has completely died out, and you rarely see a person on the corner with his thumb out for a ride any more. Used to happen a lot, hardly happens at all any more. We could romanticize that time: young folks would set out with a sleeping bag and a few bucks, and hitch across the entire U.S., thinking they would "find themselves" out on the road. They apparently thought that they would meet enlightened and enlightening people at the crossroads and in the vehicles across the land that were everywhere except where they came from.

Even young teens would hitchhike then, and girls did it by themselves. Lots of times they were picked up by other young people and all went fine. There was a sense of being free; the rides were short, safe and uncomplicated. Getting around without being tied down by car payments, ownership, or maintenance. Not even parking to worry about. Leave when you want, go where you want, stay as long as you want and not pay for any of it. Sound cool? Sound free?

Sometimes it was. Sometimes it was inconvenient, and sometimes dangerous. In your parents' day a whole generation hitchhiked and now hardly a soul does. It was a fad, not a very good one, and for good reasons it has died a quiet death. Long may it stay dead.

Dan was 19. He had hitchhiked up into the Rocky Mountains and then decided, in the middle of a March night, to go to the Caribbean. Some of the time while he was waiting for a ride he slept in old junk cars till traffic started up again in the morning.

One night it was too cold to sleep so Dan was standing out by a dark still highway. A pickup truck came by and slammed to an abrupt stop. Dan got in. Clearly the driverssss had been drinking and could barely function. His head was rolling as he tried to fight off either sleep or fainting. He shifted up and got the truck up to about 70 mph this way. Dan was fully awake, scared and wondering how this was all going to go.

While the truck was going 70, the driver was losing consciousness. His heavy eyes closed and his head fell back as he succumbed. The truck, still at 70, veered onto the grass on the left side of the road, and down a slight hill. Still at 70. Farther from the road, through the high grass, still at 70. Dan grabbed the wheel, and jerked hard to the right. Still at 70, the truck bucked across the field and back up onto the road. When the truck was back up to the pavement the driver startled awake.

Dan yelled, "Let me out here!" The driver pulled over, stopped, and Dan hopped out, grateful to be alive. The driver spun the tires as he pulled away, and sped on into the night. To who knows where? Sound cool? Sound free?

Sometimes we may find ourselves in situations where we feel uneasy, uncomfortable, or in danger. We don't want to overreact, causing undue upset to someone else, but our internal danger-sensor is going off at the same time, and we feel conflicting sensations: should I speak up and honor my own fear, and possibly risk some ridicule, or should I shut up and endure, as though the other person's assessment of this situation is a better read?

Don’t be too afraid to speak up for your own safety—or even your own comfort. Let your own signals determine what is safe for you. Feel, think and act for yourself. That's what those feelings are for!

Q: My friends and family keep telling me how skinny I am. Different ones who don't even know each other are mentioning that they think I have an eating disorder. I put them off, but I realize my eating habits are a little weird. What can I do to help myself without having them freak out on me?
--The Princess of Thin

A: Eating disorder behaviors can go on for a long time in secret, and maybe that has been the case with you. Evidently, despite your baggy clothes and other tricks, your pals or parents are starting to comment on your skinniness and starting to watch what you eat. Your cover is blown.

It isn't really about the food, is it? Food—or not eating the food—is just the arena you have discovered and chosen for dealing with some of your emotions, right? You could do it some other way, but this way is nearby, and it works for you, and you like it. Maybe somewhere along the line you used to feel dull and heavy and joyless—that is to say, depressed—and you got so you didn't care if you ate or not. You just lost interest in eating. Nothing tasted good, or delighted you. Then after a few days something surprising happened: your appetite just faded away. It disappeared. You didn't have to discipline yourself not to eat, or not want food. It wasn't like a diet where you were constantly trying to resist your hunger pangs. There weren't any hunger pangs any more. Your tummy was tight and flat and you were definitely in charge of food and eating. It was not in charge of you. You could go for days on cups of tea and a few crackers… And there is something exhilarating about that, eh? You feel excited, edgy, with a tingle of aliveness sparking through your chest and body—a pleasing electrical current which feels so much more tolerable than depression, or despair or aloneness or unwantedness or boredom.

In a way, do you feel powerful—even a little superior—because you don't have to eat? Some girls have felt that way, and liked the feeling. (Guys can be anorexic as well, but mostly this is an area that girls have discovered and claimed.) And the longer they live that way, the more their eating disorder feels right to them, even like a friend.

Is this what has happened to you?