Meanwhile, Out in the Heat

There's a place I go to when the world scares me. I can't seem to return these days. I miss it, sometimes.

It's so easy to assume this saddens me. It doesn't.

It's how I've always pictured driving. Outside of the driver's seat I feel safe and comfortable and more or less happy getting from point A to B without the stress. It's a nice life. You can backseat drive.

When I'm driving, all my senses are engaged. I'm stressed to the point of pain and so in the zone I don't even hear my father giving me instructions. I am the brakes and the clutch and the gas and the stick. I am the car and I can run over people if I really wanted to.

It's not safe at all. But there's nothing more free. I don't know exactly how this trip is going to go, but I do know now, with a strange, frightening clarity, where I want to go. I've had memories I've held on to for years, for the wrong reasons, but now isn't really the time to blame myself or feel sad or regretful or lonely or jealous that I'm only beginning to see things this late in my life (I say this objectively, and only in comparison to my immediate peers).

The truth is I probably would have squandered and belittled and laughed at my dreams if they came up any earlier. I did kind of do that five years ago. And that has caused me to give up and continue living in my head thinking a 7 is not bad at all. That said, let's do this!