[545 words]
I feel something for this streetlight. Its red glare protecting that dearest of intersections. Its green glow assuring me it is okay to keep going.
If you’re leaving my parents house, you hang a left, and it’s almost a straight shot to the apartment me and my ex shared for three years. Beware the ghosts and the deer—they’re the best part of the drive. If you hang a right, then two more, you’re at Liza’s house. Of course, she’s a few years and five and a half hours removed from her childhood bedroom. But if you’re lucky, you never age out of a family, even once the word has dissected itself.
If you’re coming from the high school I attended, make sure you hit the overpass at sunset. It makes it easier to love the highway below, the river somewhere to your left, and the day always creeping up on your six.
If you’re heading out of downtown, mind your speed as you pass Juvenile Center Road. Or, if you’re visiting my memory lane, detour here and see where I once drove a coworker to bail out another coworker. See her in the passenger seat, maybe already pregnant, and him in the back, his child support still unpaid.
If you arrive and you’re 17 and the night is a little too heavy, imagine your foot on the gas and glass glittering on the pavement. But don’t let the moment last any longer than the light is yellow. Green is giving up and red is full of temptations that only scald in the end.
If you come to a stop and find yourself 25, wonder if you’re even heading in the right direction. Wonder how home went from being straight south, to straight north, to a left, and back to straight south again. Wonder if that means you’ve failed. And then stop and watch as the specter of a person in the truck ahead of you taps out a beat in time with your own hand. Marvel at this. Wonder if he’s listening to the same song as you, if he had a good day at work, if he believes in God, if he felt guilty as he ate dinner, if fall is his favorite season but he harbors a secret love for summer, if he likes to fish, if he wonders about the person in the car behind him, if he knows how to play the drums, if he ever pictures his life ending and starting again at this intersection. Realize that the specter was your own shadow all along, that you already know the answers to most of these questions. Laugh about this. Cry about it. Drive home.
If you come to a stop and find yourself at Redneck Beach, you’ve gone too far. But I get it, the light was so green it looked like forgiveness. And you can always turn around. Stay a while.
If you come to a stop and find yourself, hang a right or a left, and don’t come back until you’re lost once more. Until north is south, red is green, and home is nameless.
If you come to a stop, don’t worry—someone will always be there, one or two cars back, to remind you to start again.
Kaylee Skinner is a writer residing in Wilmington, North Carolina where she was born and raised. She received her Bachelor’s in English from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Currently, she works for a marketing agency as a social media strategist. Storytelling, in her personal and professional life, is her biggest passion. Her writing encompasses themes of family, womanhood, growing up in the south, and American culture.
