Every few months, I drive about 2 ½ hours North to visit my best friend, my heart’s sister. It’s often late when I arrive, as I leave right after work on a Friday to go visit her. I spend the drive thinking, belting out renditions of favorite songs from my music collection that ceased when I turned 16. I drive, catching up with my mom on the phone. I drive, taking in the countryside outside of Milwaukee, preoccupied with the notion that the rolling green hills must go on endlessly in every direction and suppressing that rational part of me that knows they don’t.
I drive, taking pleasure in the light of the late summer sun. I drive, with my front windows down, feeling like the road goes on forever, off the edge of the earth. At the crescendo of my song, I thrust my left arm out the driver’s side window, fighting with the oncoming wind. I turn my head to the car next to me and smile easily as I continue to serenade my steering wheel.
While driving, I feel like everything is possible. I’m not this person from this broken past, I’m not this hot head that hates her job, I’m not the daughter that should have stuck around, I’m not the judgmental person that makes snap decisions, I’m not the needy person that needs to hear that you care about me. When I’m driving, I’m the kind person that lives inside me; the person that loves everyone and wants to do her best to make people happy, the person that is adroit enough to know when good enough is enough, and the person that knows that taking care of herself is as important as taking care of others.
As I’m driving, I am the strong woman that I have tried so hard to become. I am no longer the fragmented person of the past, I am whole as long as I can see no end to the road in front of me.
This car houses all of my fleeting thoughts, emotions, and dreams. It takes me both closer and further from the people I care about and love most, time and time again. My most raw emotions have been felt most in this driver’s seat ( and even sometimes in the passenger seat). I have ripped my heart open crying in this seat, and I have felt the wounds stitch themselves back together as I approach my destination. I also have laughed until I thought my insides would never relax themselves again.
I have visualized so many dreams of being a wild woman in this seat, only to find that sleeping in the woods can be louder than sleeping in a train station. Mosquito bites stop itching when I sit back in my car. Sunburn no longer is my sole source of heat. The mud that I just fell in dries and crumbles to the floorboard under my boots. When I get back in the car, the experience then calcifies into an adventure in my mind. I’m able to see, with disturbing clarity, the roots and rocks that I just climbed and slipped on. I’m able to leave the dirt under my fingernails just a little bit longer. I relax and take my first few cooled breaths of “it’s over, you did it”, no matter what “it” was. Then I shift into “drive” and continue my adventure, wherever it goes.
Hobo thoughts, hobo dreams, you will find a home outside of my car someday.
Where’s somewhere where you feel like yourself, with no one watching or judging? Let me know below in the comments 🙂
Serenading the Steering Wheel 