Driving is my therapy. It evokes an honesty within me that nothing else has ever been able to. Maybe it’s the sense of moving forward without going anywhere. Maybe it’s being able to say, or yell, or sing anything you want to as loud or as quiet as you physically can. Or maybe it’s just being forced to sit with yourself a while. But lately, I’ve had a hard time getting in the car without crying. That must mean I’m struggling. I feel like things are going pretty well, but maybe they aren’t. Maybe the things that matter aren’t.
Maybe feeling like I need to feel lighter is bothering me more than I’m willing to admit. My arms are so fucking heavy. My back aches from standing, and my shoulders, from sitting. My legs move quickly; swiftly, but with an awkwardness that can only be felt; like my knees and ankles should keep hitting each other but they don’t; like my thighs should rub together so violently they rash; yet they too remain apart. My fingers are peeling, and my nails are grown out beyond their withering tips of skin. My hair never seems to fall naturally, but unevenly over one side of my solidly packed skull, falling unflatteringly into my eyelashes caked in black gunk that gets touched up too often.
My feet long to be rubbed, held, kissed, pushed in to with knobby thumbs and bony fingertips, and they ache. I push them against each other when I try to sleep, caressing my own tired calves with the tops of my callused, knobby toes, trying to push out the tension, the panic, so I can sleep awhile. My toes are so used to pushing on pedals, pushing harder, until I reach 80, until I can’t feel the road anymore; until I can’t tell that I’m not going anywhere anymore; until I feel like stopping only for gas until I reach the other ocean; they’re so used to that constant pushing that they feel unnatural in flat shoes. Only heels please. Push me closer to the top shelf so I don’t have to ask anyone for help.
But they still ask if I need assistance. They smile so it seems sincere, but I know, because I’m in a dress, and my hair is tousled, and my lips are shiny from whatever color I put on them to make me look less tired, and I’m in my trusty heels, I know they only ask because for some reason people are drawn to this horribly disgusting idea of beauty. And I buy whatever it was I wanted at whatever store that was, and I go to my car, and I cry. I cry because of my tired arms, always reaching upward, wanting more, and I cry because I must be struggling.
I wipe the dust and red fuzz from my dashboard with the sleeve from my jacket hoping it will make me feel lighter, because having something new in the car, this new bag full of something new, makes me feel heavy. And it starts to rain. It gets the parts of my car that I cannot reach from inside, brushing the dust and dirt off for me, making me feel lighter. I get out, hoping it can get some of the parts of me I can’t reach either, and I cry, because I must be struggling. It does its best.
I touch up my gunky black lashes and I feel heavy again, but maybe now they won’t notice. And I think of my mother. I think of all the things that couldn’t fit inside my little car that makes me think of her, and I start to panic. There is far too much to carry and not enough to hold. And I drive. Feeling my empty car except for this bag beside me and my clunky shoes on my feet that longed to be rubbed and I cry because I must be struggling.
I keep the windows down, letting the rain do whatever it feels it needs to, and I need to drink something. I buy another something and I drink it, almost all at once, almost desperately, and I feel better, but I feel heavy. I consume and consume, keeping some odd worldly balance, but it pushes me into feeling full, and fat. And I feel heavy. And I cry because I know I’m struggling. And crying doesn’t make me feel lighter. It just makes me feel salty. Like my face is sunburnt and swollen from being in the sun, and dry from soaking in the ocean air, and thick with saltwater droplets that have dried on my cheeks and in my ears and cling to every strand of my hair making it impossible to detangle.
And I feel heavy,
and I want to drive as fast as I can,
and I want to stop crying,
and I want to throw all these stupid clunky shoes out of my open windows,
and I don’t want to feel like I need to touch up my gunky black lashes,
and I want to have more to hold,
and I don’t want to be thirsty anymore,
and I want someone to rub my feet,
and I don’t want to buy any more something’s,
and I don’t want the attendant to ask me if I need help,
I don’t need help,
and I want to have more to hold,
and much less to carry,
and I want the rain to get all the spots I can’t reach,
even with these stupid shoes,
and I want to feel lighter.
-Taylor Bradley
taylorbradley91 