Night Time Drive

360 days ago I drove these streets and it had been raining, I remember. I was glad to get out at the time. I did not then know what desperation, joy and heartbreak that would follow my leaving that tiny house out in the country of Shawnee. That house made me and broke me and set me up for the woman I would become… the woman born from isolation deeper and community stronger than she had known at that time.

I drove those same streets tonight, each passing headlight and each passing streetlight a reminder, each bend on the road familiar, each hill and street and backway a ghost that suddenly haunted. That round-a-bout, that Price Chopper, that road and those lights, each flaring a memory buried these past 12 months and now resurrected with all sorts of hopes and dreams that my heart had held on to. The beauty of the rising sun upon the hill as I drove to work… Target. How many different roads had I driven to that place? How many homes had claimed it, how many lifetimes? All dashed, now, all decimated and crumbled like seashells becoming sand.

I need to get out of here

The thought resounded in my head, a clear voice among the memories.

The little blue house out in Shawnee. That symbol of a life falling apart.

And then my next home, that apartment rising on the hill, a mere quarter mile from Shawnee Mission Park. That image of complete abandon, absolute loneliness, untold regret and guilt. I passed it on the highway, a blur on my right, I saw the light glow amber on the statuesque sign.

I need to get out of here.

Then next, the little two bedroom basement place, the Holy of Holies and even that was a memory tarnished, overwritten, painted over with something bleaker but firmer and more true. White-washed for the next chapter to be written (or painted). . .

I need to get out of here.

Each memory, each stretch of road and bend of highway glimmering with the light of the Magic Hour, shimmering, illuminescent, a beauty brought on by a trick of atmosphere and time. Not truth. Truth is much harsher in her estimation. Wisdom is much more clear on my folly.

And now. Will this house in this place be a memory I come back to and replay as a chapter in my life (albeit brief)?

Yes. It’s true.

I have grown and changed more in the past 3 months than in the past 10 years.

I have become. I have known and I have seen and I have chosen. With my head this time and not my heart.

I choose this. And I choose him. And I choose to work at this place. And I choose this life.

I give up the other (and every thing and every person that entails…)

even if my dreams break upon the rocks.

maybe I choose to dream bigger.