Route 66

I wasn’t prepared to feel lonely when I finally decided to head south and leave the stuff I couldn’t fit into the back of my ’72 VW Bug in my deserted 8 x 7 room with a note to my roommate, Samantha: “Help yourself to whatever you like. And remember that I think you’re the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me in this one-horse town.”

I packed up and left while she was at work. I knew she’d be worried about me, but she knew I’d been thinking about this. This abandonment. And I couldn't bear a goodbye. I'd had too many of those in my life. And Sam knew it. She'd never be petty enough to hold it against me.

Samantha and I had grown closer than sisters while I lived with her these past many months. We’d stay up until all hours of the night talking, discussing, analyzing, reiterating—coming to many conclusions. Mostly about men. And most of them wrong. We were just trying to figure it all out, Life and its many complexities. While I was grounded and fixated, she was superfluous and flighty. We were a perfect combination. I was going to miss her. And I cried as I pulled out of Whiton’s only gas station, for the last time.

The open road greeted me like a long, lost friend. Beckoning me, really. I wondered why I’d put it off for so long. Probably because of Charlie. I never meant any of my life to be ordered by Charlie, and if you had asked me I would have vehemently denied it, but there was no mistaking it. What is it about emotionally irrelevant relationships that make a girl crazy? They have a way of building prison walls that no one can escape from. Not until you find the weak spot and push just a little bit. And Charlie, although he was the reason for the fortress, was also the weak spot. As soon as I was willing to push it hard enough, it gave way without a fight. Just crumbled right there into a pile of useless rubble.

I drove by his little ranch just south of town and gave it a one-finger salute at 65 mph. It felt good to be rid of him. Completely.

I giggled about the fact that I felt ashamed of my gesture--but not enough to take it back. Charlie deserved more than a drive-by, “Screw you!” But as lonely as I was, I didn’t have the time. Texas was waiting for me. And I knew what that meant.