the road trip from Hell

I am a good road-tripper. My family and I have made the 13 ½ hour trip from Northern Alabama to the Philadelphia suburbs twice a year, every year, from the time I was 2-22. So what I mean is, I’m very good at finding the most efficient way to get from point A to point B when point A and point B happen to be quite far apart, with minimal complaining or fear along the way. I have less practice in the finer art of meandering across the picturesque countryside admiring quaint towns and buying organic corn from road stands. That just isn’t my particular road-trip skill – I am fast.

So when faced with the decision to drive (thank you Sequestration) the now only 10 ½ hours to see my parents, I was unfazed. I’ve made the trip a few times before shortly after I first moved here and I was sure it would be fine. As the day moved closer forecasts of snow and storms began circulating the news but I paid them no mind. I would be leaving in the middle of the day. During the warmest part of the day. Any measly accumulation that managed to escape the clouds during the heat of the afternoon in March in Virginia surly wouldn’t stick. It certainly wouldn’t stick to the highway. Some random back roads maybe, but nothing that would affect me. In fact the more people asked or worried for me about the potential snowfall the more confident I became. By the time I left I was bordering on a cocky, arrogant fool.  When the snowfall began an hour or two into my trip I laughed at all those who had wished me luck or given me hasty advice. And then it happened. Suddenly the snow picked up and I was having a hard time seeing. My windshield wipers, I discovered, were not the best. I haven’t had the car for that long and honestly, living in Northern VA didn’t give me many opportunities to try them out while driving through excessive snowfall. I wasn’t panicking though, I kept behind other cars who would break some of the gusts of flakes and figured it would be over soon. I was moving swiftly south. Unfortunately, it would get much worse before it got better. Eventually the left lane of the highway was so covered in snow it was not useable and the right lane had two small tracks carved in the snow for each tire tread.  Now I was getting nervous. I checked and the weather report made it seem like once I got to Wytheville it would all be over. Only another 2 hours. I could make it till then.

It was at about this time I realized I had to go to the bathroom, but I knew getting off the interstate mostly likely meant not getting back on. If the highway looked this bad, the smaller roads had to be impassable and an unexpected overnight in a central Virginia motel was not on my agenda. Finally the weather lighted up and I found a gas station. I felt like a toddler doing the potty dance while I waited for my gas tank to fill up. It was not one of my prouder moments. 

Having the worst of the trip behind me I settled into listening to Tina Fey’s Bossypants. Later, while on the phone with my friend from college I realized I would again be needing two hands and all of my faculties to stay on the road as the rain started increasing in Tennessee. Hanging up rather reluctantly I assumed I’d be able to call her back shortly. The rain picked up and the clouds got darker. Then the wind started. Being from tornado alley I’m generally pretty good with the threat of tornadoes. Go to the basement stay away from windows and pray that God has mercy on you. It’s a pretty easy equation. However, my roommates can tell you that nothing frightens me more than the possibility of a tornado while I’m driving on the highway.  Tons of tornado training has taught me that the worst (and I mean absolute worst) place to be during a tornado is in your car. Especially in your car, high up in the air on an over pass. So deciding that it would be better to check what was going on to easy any further anxiety, navigating my tiny Toyota through the downpour was already taking it’s toll, I called my brother who promptly looked up the weather report for some city in Tennessee I will never remember and said, “No tornado warning, only a wind advisory.” Great! One less thing to worry about. Now unfortunately, what they don’t tell you when you buy the tiny Toyota is that although your car payments are next to nothing you’ll feel like a canoe at sea during a hurricane if you ever have to drive it through any amount of wind. I swear every last gust pulled my tiny car one way or another. I’ve never been so glad I opted not to buy the smart car! 

Finally we’re in the home stretch, the snow is gone; the rain has stopped; only the wind remained. But at this late hour I’m finally losing it. At 2 hours out I begin to worry that once I get home I won’t be able to go to sleep cause I’ll be so wound up. At 1 hour out I realized I was now worried I would fall asleep before I got there.  Now I have a friend who runs ultramarathons (these crazy races where people run for 24 hours and whatnot) and she describes getting delirious and seeing things during some of the final hours of racing. How embarrassing to realize that after 12 hours of not running, no sitting in a car, I too am hallucinating. Suddenly the light from the reflectors join together so the road looks as if it makes a 90 degree turn in only 10 feet. Or the trees are situated just far enough away that when they sway in the breeze it is clear a family is sauntering across the highway and you are about to hit them.  Some people run for 24 hours; I can’t sit in a car for more than 10. Some things in life just aren’t fair.

Once it was all said and done, I got home to my parents safely and exhausted enough to flop into bed. And since I didn’t die I think the whole thing makes for quite an adventure. Special thanks to Tina Fey for writing and reading aloud her book Bossypants and The Book of Mormon sound track for keeping me awake and laughing in those final hours.

and now life really begins….go to it.

When I was about 13 my mother gave me a CD of A Chorus Line. For those of you less familiar, it is a musical (which I still haven’t seen) about a group of actors auditioning for a musical. One of those play-within-a-play things… except the opposite. Throughout the show you see into some of the characters’ pasts and begin to understand more about who they are and perhaps why they went into performing.  In the middle of the sound track there is a three track montage where all of the characters recall their teenage years. The montage begins with Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love and includes one of my favorite lines, “Gee, I’m almost ready! But what for?”

I remember listening to this soundtrack for the first time on my walkman (remember those?!) during one of my family’s annual car trip from Alabama to Pennsylvania.  Now, at 13 I was a bit shocked by some of things I heard, specifically in this montage.  There was lots of sex, some homosexuality and plenty of teenage insecurity. I still remember sitting in the back seat silently shocked and worried that perhaps my mother had forgotten about these things (she hadn’t) and I wasn’t really supposed to be hearing them. I now use this as a humorous picture of what it was like to grow up with my mother. There wasn’t really any censorship but somehow I was still very certain that were I to act out any of this behavior there would be Hell to pay.

Now finally to the point. One of the final lines, “and now life really begins” has always stuck with me. The characters have just finished recounting all sorts of interesting, inappropriate and somewhat horrifying pictures of their adolescence and the last thing they say about it is, “and now life really begins, go to it.”  All of the horrors and struggles were preparations, making them the adults they grew into. Those struggles weren’t the point. 

Adolescence is an interesting time, there’s so much growing and changing and every new challenge seems like you’re fighting for your life. Every challenge feels like it’s the END OF THE WORLD, but really, it’s just the beginning, preparing you to be an independent thinking human being. I began a blog by this title directly after college assuming that it was the beginning of my life. I was an adult now. I would get a job and a place to live, pay rent and bills and somehow all of that would make me a “grownup.”  I’m now well into my twenties but I still feel like I’m only just beginning to grow up. I’m a long way from feeling like a “grownup,” and every challenge still feels like THE END OF THE WORLD.  I’d like to think that it’s because all of my life, not just my teenage years, is merely a preparation for the life I was meant to live. I will always be growing and changing into the woman God wants me to be. The life I was created for is not this one it one much grander than I could imagine. This side of eternity I will only get pictures of it, but if I can remember that this life is merely preparation for where I am bound, perhaps that will help my perspective. And hopefully help me gain wisdom and understanding from the challenges and the triumphs that life on this earth has to offer.

So I am naming this blog as such because really, life is always only just beginning.