I just came home from work. I’m back to working overtime – 9.5 and 10.5 hour days. Which is really awesome. Awesome for my bank account. Awesome for my moral.

One of those was a lie.

The drive home was oddly anxious. It may have been a culmination of things – the fact that my stomach was growling, my wrists were sore from typing for 10 hours, my contacts were dry and I hadn’t used my drops…I don’t know. But I do know that the road was wet and that it reminded me of the car accident I was in last summer.

The short sweet story is that I reached for something behind my seat, then over-corrected when I saw that I was closer to the car in the left lane than I had expected to be.

The longer story is that I was distraught because I was on the first leg of the journey that would take my then boyfriend 900 miles away from me. My car was packed (and I mean packed) with the last of his things: namely drums and drum equipment (guess what he does?). It was drizzling. We were listening to Amy Winehouse. I was depressed and on the verge of tears, so I decided to distract myself by grabbing my chapstick from my purse that was behind me. I remember keeping my eyes on the road, but not realizing how close my car was to the one in the left lane. I turned the wheel right and that’s when the car started fishtailing. I remember having this sort of bemused sensation go over me. I just thought, “Oh, haha, this is happening right now. How silly.”

I don’t remember what Bill said other than “Ashley!” as the car flung itself across the two-lane highway, landing somewhat smoothly in the median. He had to tell me to turn off my motor because I was veering on hysterical, crying and heaving, but not getting any oxygen. I just remember thinking, “omigod omigod omigod I almost killed Bill.”

You know, like the movie.

I got off easy as far as damages went, I just needed a new tire and a my wheel banged back into place. I got a $175 ticket for inattentive driving, for which I actually thanked the officer. For the next day or two, I was made anxious by the very thought of driving. I didn’t really understand how it had happened. Sure, I got that I turned too much while traveling at 65mph, but it didn’t make sense to me. I’m a safe, responsible driver. I rarely speed more than 5 over. I prefer to have two car lengths between me and the car ahead. I don’t text and drive. I signal. I don’t make sudden lane changes. I check my mirrors. I had done everything right, except I had reached behind, distracting myself for an instant. And that instant could have completely changed the course of my life, Bill’s life, and any other number of drivers on highway 41 that day. It was so clear to me that everything I knew about my life could be irreversibly changed in a matter of seconds.

And for some reason, I kept thinking about that on the drive home tonight. I almost pulled over a couple times just to ease that anxiety. But I kept thinking about how ridiculous that would be, for me to pull over because I was afraid to drive on the highway. I’m a 24 year old woman who has put tens of thousands of miles between three cars. There was virtually no reason for me to be so uneasy about driving this evening. The highway was mostly quiet, only a few other cars, none tailgating me or swerving in front of me. I wasn’t looking at my cell phone. I wasn’t reaching for anything other than the heat settings.

I don’t want fear to ever hold me back from living my life. Especially with such little things. I can’t imagine my life being stunted because I’m afraid of driving on the highway. How would that change my life? My 20-minute commute would turn into a 45-minute one. Tag-teaming on roadtrips would be out of the question. The scope of my existence would shrink to a 30-40 mile radius.

So I just told myself to not let my emotions make me their bitch,  get home, put on sweatpants, make myself some veggie spaghetti, and take a low-quality picture of myself while the noodles boil.

I’m spending the little that is left of my evening in bed with Infinite Jest. Good night.

So tonight I spent another evening flipping through my journals. I organized my diaries by year. It’s incredible how much I used to write by hand. I just don’t do that anymore, it’s really disappointing. It’s not that I wrote anything very interesting or insightful, but I have such a clear documentation of my high school days. Once I got to college, my journaling sort of fell to the side, which is terrible. I wish I had written about my days in college as in depth as I had in high school. I know they would have been more interesting. I still have all of my notebooks and typed notes saved from college, but it’s not the same.

I’d like to get back into journaling, but I can’t imagine my daily descriptions would be very interesting. “So today I went to work. It was pretty boring. I listened to podcasts and Pandora all day. I learned about colors and guts on Radiolab and laughed at Doug Benson, then I sang along to a Fleet Foxes song. After work I was on Facebook for an hour, then I decided to have a bowl of frosted flakes. Then I went for a run. It was okay. There were a lot of people playing frisbee golf in the park today. Then I showered. Now I’m going  to read my Kindle till I fall asleep. Goodnight!” Sometimes it’ll vary with hanging out with friends, dates, and personal revelations. Those are the exciting days.

Anyway, journaling more, not just blogging more. Since I started this blog, I tend to write only the things I’m willing to put online. I have to get back to having a place where I can write completely uninhibited. Notebooks were that place for eight years. I need to get back to that.

 

This is my stack of journals/diaries from 1998-2006. My goal is to make this as tall as myself by the time I’m 40.

I was going to ditch my plan from the last post, but I decided that I should actually stick with it since I publicly announced the decision. I’m limiting myself to 30 minutes, because I really want to get in bed and read. I’m reading Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity at the moment. I haven’t seen the movie in a while, but from what I remember, it follows the book pretty well. It’s a really great description and analysis of a heartbreak, complete with all the messy emotions (love, lust, anger, jealousy, desperation, apathy, etc…). I sort of wish I had read that instead of the Sloane Crosley essay.

Anyway.

June 17, 2011

• Ryan getting picked up from Badger Boys Camp by his “cousin” Taylor
• Silliness of first love
• Ferris Bueller’s Day off
• Responsibility vs. Immaturity

Last summer, my younger brother, Ryan, was chosen from what I assume to be a large group of young men to go to the Badger Boys Camp. I wasn’t really sure what the camp was all about – something about leadership and politics. He met with students from Harvard and all over the country to learn about leadership, politics, and (I’m assuming) conservative policies. He met Scott Walker, who, had he been old enough to vote, would not have voted for. I was happy for him. He’s a smart kid who sparked debates in his civics class and bonded with a history teacher with a deadpan sense of humor and low tolerance for the bureaucracy of public schools but suffers through anyway. He had been saying he was interested in going into political science and journalism, so this was a great opportunity for him to network and get some unique experience.

Around this time, Ryan was head over heels for a girl named Taylor. He was caught up in that swirl of first love. If it hits before you’re 18, you’re basically fucked. With no significant responsibilities or obligations, you’re able to devote all of your time, energy, and furious hormones to your boyfriend or girlfriend. At that age, it’s hard to tell if it’s love or just infatuation. The first time I fell in love (or so I thought. I learned years later that I hadn’t been in love, just deep, deep, melodramatic infatuation that was the fruit of two melancholy souls connecting over a Sufjan Stevens song), I remember being so overwhelmed and obsessed with the relationship. Everything he did or said was amazing. I commemorated our firsts without anyone knowing:  I bought fuschia geraniums and planted them in clay pots, savoring the feeling of dirt under my nails while I remembered the romantic  and clumsy fumblings and soft murmurs from the night before.

Obviously I wasn’t there for any of Ryan’s special moments with his girlfriend, but when he called home asking for me or my mom to call the headquarters to get out of camp early to see her, I laughed. I remembered those feelings – the ones that made me choose the more foolish of the choices (lying about a slumber party to sleep over and then getting caught, spending twenty minutes kissing goodbye to end up being a half hour late for curfew). He was supposed to be at a camp that celebrated leadership and responsibility and his presence there made a statement: that he was a smart, level-headed young republican.

Somehow between the three of us, we wove a lie that involved his “cousin” Taylor picking him up. The directors of the camp were pretty strict about the boys leaving early, requesting ID from the driver. After talking to the director,  my mom laughed a little, saying she was pretty sure they thought Taylor was a guy.

“Well, that will be a surprise when they see her,” she said.

“Yeah, then just imagine how they’ll greet each other,” I said, imagining something similar to the scene in Ferris Bueller’s day off when Ferris picks up Sloane from school and the principal is shocked by the incestual kiss.

“Kissing cousins,” my mom laughed.

I knew that what he was doing was stupid. It was an immature decision. A truly responsible young man would have stayed for the whole week, talking with everyone there and making connections that would benefit in the future. Leaving camp early with a little blonde girl he kissed upon arrival probably wouldn’t give the best impression. But I went along with it to prolong that simpleness for him. Eventually his life would be full of bills and due dates and budgets and at some moment he would inevitably feel the crush of heartbreak. At that moment, all he had to worry about was making his girlfriend happy, and I was a little envious.

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Okay. So that took 20 minutes to write and 20 minutes to edit while also contributing a 200-comment thread/chatroom on Facebook with three of my friends.