Cold: NB 183 @ 3:42 am

Somber. Alone. Hopeless. That's how I felt on the drive I would take every morning-- earlier and earlier each day-- north on Highway 183. Just thinking of that dark stretch of road brings back the same horrible feelings. I told myself that all of this was for my own good. It was my sense of duty they kept me going. Duty towards something that did not make me happy, something I didn't believe in. If I worked along enough, hard enough, I truly believed that it would finally pay off.

I would listen to up-beat music while on this drive in hopes that it would cheer me up. It never worked; in fact, it only served to make me feel more alone. These musicians probably never dreamed that their albums would be played before sunrise in the car of a lonely 20-something woman driving towards ten to sixteen hours of duty, returning home after the sunset with just enough time to shove a microwave meal down her throat before heading to bed and doing all of this again for six days out of the week. No, these musicians had hoped that these albums would be played by ecstatic drunks at frat parties, or by wannabe rockstars on their way to their own gigs, or by swooning 14-year-old high school girls in their rooms, discussing with their BFFs their school girl crushes on the band members.

I learned that there are very few cars on the highway at that time of morning. Those few cars I did pass help me confirm that, yes, there were other people still alive. I often wondered what these others were doing out at this time. He's driving way too fast, especially for an older man! What's he in a rush to? Perhaps in a hurry to get to the hospital where one of his loved ones was just admitted. This guy looks to bed in good shape... Was he coming home from a night stocker job? She looks very tired and her hair is a mess... Did she stay out at the club until last call, sobering up in her car for a half hour before finally heading home? (I should probably keep a safe distance from her!)

Passing Burnet Road, I would approach a used car lot. Every morning I could see a bight red and blue "OPEN" sign glowing from the window. The first time I saw this I felt a sense of comradeship: There was someone besides me up at this time while everyone else in this town is fast asleep in their beds! Someone else who is not up this early because they want to be, but because they feel they need to be (perhaps even thinking-- as I did-- that if they kept it up long enough that they would eventually truly want to do what it was they were doing)! But as I passed the used car lot it became clear that, despite the sign, the establishment was not actually. As I passed by again and again, morning after morning, I wondered why the sign was on: Did they always leave it on, thinking "What's the harm?" Was it a strange marketing ploy that I was too daft to understand? Or perhaps one morning they forget to turn the sign on yet remembered top turn it of at closing time (thus actually turning it on), beginning an endless cycle of turning the sign off when they open and then turning it on when they close for the day. Someone should really tell them...

Nearing my exit I would pass a church that always had a white banner hanging outside with a nonsensical or goofy statement written on it in black type containing words such as "sweet" and "epic." Ah, trying to target the teens and young adults... Now this type of advertising I understood, but I wasn't convinced that it actually worked. Was there really anyone driving by, disenchanted by religion until they saw the church with the "sweet sign" hanging outside, at which time they though "Ah, they are silly and use slang... Jesus gets me! I'll be checking out that church this Sunday!"? I couldn't imagine that there was anyone who decided to attend that church solely based on such a banner, but what did I know?

Exiting the highway, I would pass a bank. As with most other banks this one had a marquee announcing the time and the temperature. "3:53 am," "37°F"... Nothing that I didn't already know: It was too early in the morning, and it was cold. One morning a different message was scrolling at a seemingly show pace across that marquee. In bright red letters, it seemed to mock me: "WHAT IS YOUR DREAM?"

Images began to flash through my mind: The metal rose I bought at the festival for the person I love. The smile of my crotchety old drawing professor at my answer to one of his questions. The barista behind the counter. The rockstar on stage, wailing on his guitar. The bullfrog I found in the hall in high school which my art teacher had helped me hide in a jar until the day was over and I could take him home. The arrowheads and artifacts on the table at the state college visit my dad took me to. The box of New Wave and Art Rock records that my sophomore English teacher gifted to me at the end of the school year. The eyes of my friend in junior high after I returned from an extended and unexplained absence.

I continued on the drive to my destination, continued the motions of what had become my life, but I still haven't been able to shake those images...