Today I took the long way home. My usual carpool buddy wasn't with me, so the road was all mine. I drove up and down the usual main roads like a pacing animal. I enjoyed the subtle familiarity of traffic, the brief moments when I'm bitterly aware that no matter how hard I try, I'll never know the people trapped in their little windows-sealed, doors-locked transportation pods around me. I am surrounded by people who are determined not to be known. Faces without names. I took the long way home. I passed by my end of the old neighborhood, now overcome with scraggly grass and litter. I drove in the middle of lower class traffic, my dirty grey Toyota blending in like it always belonged there. It does belong there, now that I think about it. I drove past mom's old high school. Man, it's gone downhill. Kids walk home with friends, listening to ipods, acting like a side-walk version of the pavement's mayhem. I took the long way home, listening to Miranda Lambert ramble about the house that built her. I'm a picky country fan; I don't like just any hillbilly sob story on the radio. This song was a keeper though; I could relate to it. I drove all around my old neck of the woods and remembered a lot about why I am who I am, about what made me. I reminisced and smiled and teared up all in different waves. I spent a lot of time thinking back to the original me. I took the long way home today.
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