Another sign for the roadside attraction.
Another sign, counting down the miles.
I had no itinerary. I could stop if I wanted to. When I wanted to. But did I want to stop? Should I keep going? I look to the seat behind me. One dog leans her head out the window, ears catching the wind, tongue flapping in the breeze. The other dog’s head rests on the seat divider. She’s watching me. Waiting to see what I’ll do. She’ll go where I go. What choice does she have?
I scratch at her wide head. Pit heads are perfect for scratching. We pass another sign. We’re closer still. I wish I could ask what she would want. What she would like. Better still, I wish there was someone in the seat next to me. Someone who’d touch my shoulder and point, off into the distance like the captain of a great voyage.
Our voyage.
I want someone to be sitting there next to me. To tell me what they’d like to enjoy with me. To tell me to stop.
But instead, the seat is empty, and another sign passes by.
The Desire To Share
Deep down, there’s a desire to share a life with someone. To not simply have someone around, but to experience life with them. To hold hands as a setting sun bleeds over a watery horizon, warming the waves to shades of turquoise and the sky tones of lavender before fading from existence for the night. A person to be there, arm wrapped around sagging shoulders, head pressed against head, after devastating news is received.
It’s not through better or worse. It’s simply through life. And even the most isolated person has a longing for sure a connection.
You have it. I have it. Deep down, everyone has it. Sometimes the desire’s there, exposed and ready. For others, it needs excavating. It needs work. It needs someone who’s delicate enough to unearth the ruins of someone’s love, and compassion to help piece it back together. Wherever category you might find yourself in, there’s the need for companionship.
I’ve been on my own for a long time now. On my own in many ways. I’ve worked at home, away from coworkers or colleagues, for well over a decade. I’ve been, realistically, alone romantically for nearly as long. It’s not a cry-out. It’s not a plead. It isn’t something, and yet it is something. It’s reality.
Most days it doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t tug at me or weigh me down. It doesn’t enter thoughts or feelings or emotions.
But some days it does.
And usually, it’s unexpected. Like when I’m driving on the highway, dogs in the back seat, and I see a sign saying I’ve almost reached the destination. It’s just a few miles ahead.
Do I want to stop?
On that particular day, I wished I had someone there. Someone there to tell me to stop.
Not that I couldn’t on my own. But because I wanted to do it for someone. With someone. There’s only so long you can coast on auto-pilot before you begin wanting someone at your side too. Co-pilots don’t exist in a party of one.
A Story Of Everyone
There are those on the constant search for someone to share their lives with. To be there with. To sleep in late with. To leave a party early with.
Then there are others who are not looking. They don’t scour the horizon, looking for that perfect match. If it happens it happens. And yet they want it to happen.
“It happens when you’re not looking,” I’ve been told before. But at the same time, if it happens and you’re not looking, can you really be sure you didn’t miss something along the way?
It’s a story of you, of me, of everyone in between. Maybe the seat next to you is occupied. Maybe it remains open. Whatever there is, it’s a story we all have in common. It’s a thread that binds through all of us. It beats in our hearts. It pumps through our veins.
The story of wanting, at least for a time, that fairy tale life. The possibility of a happy ending. And it all begins with someone, there by your side, taking in life. Their life. Your life. Your shared life.
Continue To Drive
I quickly approach one final highway sign.
Attraction at the next exit. So much time spent advertising to me. Stamping it into my brain. Making sure I know what is there, and what I’ll miss.
Nowhere near as long as the empty seat to my side.
That’s just how life goes. For a time, there might be someone there, tugging at your arm, growing in excitement as the attraction exit nears. For a time, the seat may be empty. Perhaps it’s better empty. It allows time to think. To reflect. To fully appreciate when there is someone occupying it.
Because it’s impossible to fully take in when you don’t know what it’s like without it.
But that’s just part of the journey. Part of the road of life. Sometimes there are co-pilots. Other times you’re on your own.
I pass the exit, the highway off-ramp curving down, away from me. I consider what I might have missed for a moment, but the moment passes quickly and I drive on.
I didn’t have anyone to tell me to stop.
Interesting. I just got to my mom’s house. It was my first long road trip with my daughter post divorce. A totally different experience flying solo. Packing myself ... loading the car ... driving ... pumping gas off some random exit where I did not feel entirely safe ... getting stuck in traffic and nobody to curse with ... watching the most beautiful sunset and trying to share it with a little person totally uninterested and then getting to my mom’s and having to unpack ... myself ... again. I get it my friend. Sometimes I roll pretty easily with being alone and then other times it just hits me like a wave of nostalgia of those precious moments I got to share traveling with the person I adored and loved with my whole being. Not sure how some people are able to spend their whole lives together and then others, like ourselves, weren’t able to figure it out in partnership. Somehow we were meant to do our deepest growth alone. I suppose there’s some peace in knowing we’re not actually alone after all :-)
Wow, this one got me! I started to tear up while reading it, since it perfectly describes my feelings these days, too.