This is an interesting and plausible narrative. It seems to me, though, no complicated explanation is required for a college student to take a trip on short notice. When I was that age I did not have as many exciting romantic trips as T9D. But I did react more to things that happen in life. It wouldn't have taken much to make me go on some trip on short notice. You certainly wouldn't need a complex explanation as to why I would buy alcohol, even in large bottles b/c of the lower unit cost.
I agree with those who say taking a capricious trip is something many people do every day. The unexplained disappearance is the issue.
While I do not necessarily believe that the reason for Maura's trip directly ties to her disappearance, Scoops's interview with her supervisor, and this comment, have me looking at both sides of things.
I was struck by just how upset Maura's supervisor described her to be. I can't help but wonder, after paying closer attention to that interview, if her state of mind may have had something to do with what happened. Even if she did not initially set out to commit suicide, she was upset enough beforehand to make it easy to see how she could have become so upset, especially with the added alcohol factor, to do something stupid after the wreck.
2 things I'll try to say quickly, as they are personal stories. I promise I only mention them because I am using them to help sort through all this:
First of all, one thing I know about suicide, from having a close family member who has attempted suicide over 10 times (both overtly as well as "accidentally"), is that it's not always so cut-and-dried. Sometimes it's hard to define whether or not a person is "suicidal". From what I've seen, sometimes people just really don't know what they're doing, haven't decided whether or not they really want to harm themselves, may or may not actually have it planned out, and more than anything are confused. For example, my family member has slit his wrists a couple times. Once was more of a cry for help, and once was a real attempt. But there have been other times that he "accidentally" overdosed, or overdosed but "didn't mean to hurt himself" but rather wanted to escape pain. Who knows.
2nd story (and I'll tie these in later), has to do with me and goes along with the post I quoted. When I was 26 and thought I had outgrown the impulsivity and random drives out to the middle of nowhere, I found myself going on a trip that I could see as being similar to Maura's. I was "talking" to a guy, and when things went wrong with us I impulsively rented a car and took off for his hometown in another state. I had a roommate at the time who had no idea anything was even wrong or that I had done this. I went there without telling him and had no plan. I didn't even have plans to see him. It just felt like the right thing to do in my chaotic state of mind. I remember researching the area just like Maura did, even though once I got there I had no idea why I was there exactly. Anything could have happened, especially since I was already upset. Looking back I could see myself (especially if I had had alcohol in my system, although I didn't) doing a number of things: I'm not clinically crazy by any means, but I could see myself crashing my car as a half-hearted attempt at help or attention, I could see myself crashing out of exhaustion, or if anything had gone even more wrong between us I could have even turned suicidal and crashed for that reason. If I crashed accidentally, I could have become even more upset and done something stupid that I had not initially set out to do. Or I could have tried to make it to his house out of instinct one way or another, even in the car with a stranger, and who knows what could have happened from there. Just like with Maura, nobody knew where I was, and I didn't want them to, so it's hard to say how I would have handled that.
I guess my point in that whole shpeel was to say that Maura may not have really had an exact plan or known what she was doing there. I don't think it's as easy as some of us think to predict whether or not her intention was to commit suicide. That's something that can change in an instant, one way or the other, with someone unstable. But one thing I have realized is that I DO think that her state of mind is a factor that needs to be taken into consideration. And I didn't used to think so. I'm not saying that what became of her is directly related to the reason for the trip, but the fact that she was so upset would, I believe, greatly affect how she handled the car wreck situation. We just don't know in what way.
