Friday Night Drives

I’m stopped at the red light at the intersection of Carmack and James Campbell.

The roads are full of traffic.

It’s 6:20 PM on Friday the Thirteenth.

I’m sitting in the truck, blaring Save Me, and I’ve had at least one person give me side eye as I emotionally belt out lyrics to the song.

I didn’t come out here for you, I thought to myself.

I’m on a drive.

Most people around me are probably headed home from work, or trying to get out of town for their weekend plans.

I’m on a mission.

I just took a hike and I’m taking the long way to drop off a load of stuff at my booth at Baxter’s.

I need to drive down a dark road, as gray clouds fill the sky, and feel the fall air pelt me in the face. It’s healing. But more than that, it reminds me I’m alive.

The light turns green and I start thinking about this road I’m on; the literal one. The first time I drove down James Campbell was in September of 2022. I hadn’t lived here long and I was waiting for my pizza order to be ready, so I decided to explore. I drove down this road not knowing where it went and felt excitement about how much I still had to learn about my new home. I eventually found a place to turn around and was greeted by the most amazing sky I had ever seen at sun set, at least while I was conscious. I had dreamed of a sunset like this many years before I ever landed in Tennessee. The sky only gets like that here. This night, this sky, was always destined for me. I went and picked up the pizza and drove home to find my divorce decree sitting in my mailbox.

I move further down the road and think about that moment and how it changed everything. In my mind, I had already been divorced with the separation and literal move across the country, but now it was official. The divorce was relatively easy. We didn’t have kids or assets to divide up, so we signed papers, said the relationship was irretrievably broken, paid some fees, and boom-marriage over.

It had been easy to stay with him. Say yes. Let him become my husband after years of knowing he wasn’t the one. It was easy to stay in the same place, with the same person. But it was never right.

Thinkin’ Bout Me comes on next (of course, *eye roll*), which only confirms my whole theory on easy vs. right.

No matter how much I prayed he would change and become the man I wanted, he didn’t. I didn’t know at the time who I was supposed to be with, but I knew it wasn’t someone who didn’t even want me to be myself. Take my loud singing, music blaring, bopping to the music drives for example. He would cringe, tell me to stop, and change the song if I ever dared to do that in a car with him. Seems like something so silly, why should it matter? But he hated it. And it wasn’t right. And we were never right.

That reality hurts less now, but I still have to remind myself that I can’t ever ignore my heart again. Too much has happened and my eyes have been opened clearly to how devastating it is to choose the easy path over the right path.

The night before this, I had coffee with a new friend/colleague and had told her about how my Dad’s passing was no longer as sad for me, because his death was probably the only reason I was still alive. I told her that I felt his presence now more than I often did when he was alive, even though he left, he really didn’t go anywhere. As I drive down the road, I’m reminded that so many of my Dad’s choices are why he left this life so early, but even his bad choices (and my own) helped me to make good ones.

We never know how things are going to play out in life, or death, but the best we can do is pay attention and follow our hearts.

The sun has fully set at this point and the arm I have stuck out the window is cold from the dropping temperatures, but Drive You Out of My Mind is on and there is no way I’m rolling the window up.

I haven’t dated (aside from my brief stint on Bumble, but that’s a blog for another time), since the separation. It’s not to say I haven’t had prospects, interests, and some serious temptations, but I’m just not interested in what dating is to my generation now.

Tinder.

Bumble.

Hinge.

Zoosk.

Feels.

We sound like idiots. We have lost our ability to have conversations, approach strangers without being creepy or weird, or express vulnerability without fear of rejection.

I missed the boat apparently for a man to actually ask me on a date and treat me like something other than a commodity, and that’s just sad. But if that doesn’t exist anymore, I’m certainly not going to try to force it with Joe: I clearly still live in my mom’s basement, please swipe right for a good time. Dude, hard pass.

I know my person is out there.

I don’t believe love is random, which makes me an anomaly amongst my friend group, and at this point, probably the general population.

I believe soulmates are real. I believe God made one person to complement us perfectly. Now, life is not fair and we have free will, so do people always end up with their soulmate? Heck no. I know plenty of people that haven’t for one reason or another, or they simply don’t believe in it.

You can always wonder how things would be different, perhaps someone you have always wondered about has never been single at the same time as you, so you’ve never had that chance. Maybe there’s a reason for that? Perhaps, when you are single at the same time as someone else, one of you just isn’t ready, or it seems too complicated. People miss each other for the most ridiculously petty reasons every day. But soulmates? That kind of connection is not something you can just miss out on unless you seriously close yourself off from it.

I spent nearly 11 years with a man, who I don’t think, even liked me. He certainly didn’t like my friends, family, the way I acted, my love for reading, or desire to live out some seriously big dreams (which he deemed too expensive). I can’t think of anything more closed off than that. I Remember Everything comes on and I do remember everything. I could open the box up that has every memory from that relationship and I could let it break me all over again. But I learned my lesson from Pandora and I don’t even look at that box anymore. It’s labeled, “Things That No Longer Serve You” and I’m honestly ready to leave it somewhere in the middle of nowhere, on a stormy Tennessee road.

I have lots of different routes I take on my drives. This one takes me on a big loop from one end of Columbia to the other and back again. I’m on the interstate now and have a moment where I just want to take off. I love the open road and there’s a place that’s been on my mind for months. I could keep driving. I could just leave and get there in about a day. But some answers are not for today, even though I think they should be.

I know that every big thing in life is preceded by a series of baby steps. And generally, I’m patient and try to handle each baby step with grace. Getting a bad diagnosis. Selling and buying a house. Moving. Losing a job. Figuring out a new career path. Becoming a teacher. All of these big, life changing things have happened to me in the last couple years and I was never worried that any of it wouldn’t work out. I was stressed. I had moments of sheer panic. But I knew if I followed my heart, the path would become clearer with each step. But love? Having a family? Being a mom? I’m fearless for the most part now, because I truly believe that you should live life to the fullest, without fear of failure, but some of my dreams are so big and precious and special to me, they still seem impossible.

My mind is weighed down with thoughts of work, and the future, and what tomorrow will bring. So many of my questions have been answered, but so much of my life still makes no sense.

I don’t want to find my person just to say I have someone. Or so I’m not alone. I’ve healed that brokenness in me and know that I’m worth more than that. I want to be in my person’s life because I genuinely miss being that rock for another human being.

Having spent 5 weeks with my students, I have realized how much I thrive on human connection. Being a support to people. Listening to their problems and victories. Cheering them on and helping them to live each day with purpose. It’s what I’m good at and it’s one of the things God put me here to do.

I want to be that blessing for the man God wants in my life, not because I need it, but because he does. And kids. And dogs. And whatever/whoever else ends up in our lives.

I’ve closed myself off so much and now that I have opened my heart up, and realized how much capacity I have for love, I don’t want to ever go back to being that person again.

My kids make fun of how old I am, but as I pass the sign for my school, Glory Days comes on and I laugh. 11-year-olds think they are peaking, but seriously, my thirties have been the absolute best time in my life so far, and for that I am truly thankful. I know the best is yet to come, which is a seriously wonderful thing to think about.

I take these drives to try and clear my head on the days where the impossibility of it all picks a fight with the part of me that knows better. In May of 2022, I drove on this road because our hotel was off it. I only got a glimpse of Columbia on that trip, but I made my decision while driving on this road, that I was going to move here. It seemed impossible then that it would all come together, but it did. Driving down this road always reminds me that the impossible is just another welcomed challenge.

1 year ago I didn’t know if I would even make a friend in my new town, and now I’m on my way downtown, to stock some new items at my booth. I know more people in TN that I ever dreamed possible, and am more involved in the community than I ever thought I would be, a year into living here.

As I turn on the street that will take me to Baxter’s, my old friend Chris Stapleton comes on, and gives me that final reminder I need on a night like tonight. Some things just haven’t happened yet. There’s that word again. YET.

I’m so busy worrying about where I’m going and what my next step is, I forget, maybe my people are still catching up. I’m willing to wait for the white horse, and the great story, and the big love, because, why wouldn’t I? I have listened to my heart patiently about everything else, why would I rush the biggest and most important things now?

I pull into a spot behind the building and put the truck in park.

A year ago I wished for this.

A lot can happen in a year. Or even a month. Or a day.

The impossible doesn’t have to be impossible, and sometimes, the storms come to clear the path.

Hold on tight, girl, I ain’t there yet.