Miles To Go

I’m sitting in the driveway in my eight-year-old Mazda, the engine running, taking a moment to breathe fully while I wait for the Celtic Warrior Princess to finish primping and join me so that I can drive her to hair design school. And it hits me: this car is like the Akashic record of our singular journey; the repository for every heartbreak, milestone and triumph we’ve experienced over the last four years. Like both of us, it’s slightly tattered but none the worse for wear (that damn parking spot: high stress and poor depth perception are not a winning combination).

Before it became the backdrop of our story, the car was primarily a symbol of my genteel rebellion against my suburban mom lifestyle. No more minivan for me! Maybe that was the beginning of the end: of my ability to conform, of my 25-year marriage, of life as we knew it.

Our flight from suburbia almost four years ago marked the advent of the car’s transformation into a refuge. As the miles passed, lively imaginings of our future alternated with companionable silences, all while I received a comprehensive musical education.

“Pet Shop Boys?”

“Mom! Fall Out Boy.”

“We Three Kings?”

Eye roll. “We The Kings.”

Three days, lots of laughs, and one super speeder ticket later, the road trip was a happy memory and the real trek began. We explored and savored our new surroundings until chronic illness made it impossible. Then we logged untold miles on the highways searching for treatment, receiving additional disheartening diagnoses, scrambling to find a place where a very sick child could attend high school.

For nine months, as we drove thirty minutes to an overcrowded school with well-intentioned but insufficient accommodations, the car served as the vessel for the gestation of our new life. It cradled us through panic attacks and Panic! at the Disco, exhaustive discussions of armadillos and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the exponential growth of our already strong bond.

Even garaged, the car was crucial to our survival. It provided the privacy to discuss my daughter’s travails, her father’s felonious attempts to punish me, my shaky emotional well-being. It was a safe space for an occasional breakdown; a place where I could lock the doors, put my head down on the steering wheel, and cry like a five-year-old: mouth open, nose running, wailing.

Three years and a couple of personal miracles later, we are back to enjoying a daily commute to school. The silver lining of narcolepsy: the warrior princess is stuck with me as her chauffeur for a bit longer. We have the great good fortune to continue solving our problems, sharing great music, and cracking each other up, enveloped in the memories of all the miles we’ve covered.