I can smell the worn leather car seats and the aroma of pepper and pine blending to play me a sweet lullaby. I see an impressionist stroke as I look through the car window. My eyes might be the ones painting this canvas. I watch the sun as it’s filtered through the tree’s haze. It whips my eyes into a few seconds of blindness. The strokes leave an opaque color pressed against the car interior like stained glass.
It’s seemingly insignificant, the wrinkles that fold countless notions of the aging of my reflection. In my head, she dances across ballroom floors in bedazzled boots and goes to poetry nights. She’s sitting next to me, wearing a burnt orange hat. Its brim is entirely too wide. Crocheted swirls of life are woven across her chest with a tattoo or two – I suppose.
I’ll be considered two people, not because of some personality disorder but because one day I’ll grow to be more than just the sprout I am. I am a stranger to myself, whether wrinkled or with the plump cheeks of a 20-something-year-old who’s maybe–probably car sick; I just want to know her. I’ll recognize the mole on her right cheek, the one her mother reminds her to get checked for skin cancer. I’ll begin to appreciate her hooked nose and the fact that maybe it didn’t matter as much as her high school classmates said it did. But there will be some things peculiar, like how her eyes have still managed to sparkle despite the things she’s yet to see. I question, will they be scary or filled with wonder? I hope there will be both.
I’ll look to the driver’s seat at how her hands gently grasp the wheel. She will look back at me with little regret, analyzing me from every angle as I gather dust. I ask her if she misses me, should I miss her? I wonder if this version of myself comes to fruition. Or will I have buzzed hair, a guitar case in the trunk, and a stack of piercings in my ears? A two-person bike instead of a car?
I lean forward and tap the car dashboard as a “thank you” for the miles traveled with me. I thank my feet in the same way. They guide me down the roads of adventure, stumbling over gravel and flowing through the freshly paved intersections.
I chose myself as a passenger in this perfect opportunity, where I could choose from countless Nobel Prize winners, scholars, or inventors to inspire and encourage me. I’ve found I, somewhat reluctantly, prefer the confinement of a moving object, with someone with whom I am both a stranger and yet deeply familiar. I can gain what is most valuable from myself, looking deeply inside for answers rather than from others.
I chose this because it is the moment that she was the person she dreamt of, planned to be, and became. It is the moment I do not say, “It is what I could have been,” or that if “it hadn’t been for a world spinning through chaos,” I would be where the girl sitting next to me was. I pinch myself for my lack of time travel and future-seeing capabilities, but man, it’s beautiful to dream about. Through the haze of drifting focus, her eyes glance at the jetted white lines, a snapshot of reality against the thought of all she would and did become.
I wonder if she asks herself the same questions I do, what future she see for herself. Now, the desire falls under something like becoming an explorer with closets full of mystery and knowledge of ancient rocks, tree species, and civilizations identified in seconds. The knowledge spills out of her, even as we sit silently. I hope she embraces the pieces of me I choose not to let be seen. I see my potential through her. She speaks eloquently of the rock formations we pass; I wonder if she learned that from school or the local library science section. I don’t ask; I sit in the comfort of learning to know her without doubt. She talked about me as if I was some sort of miracle. She was too.
I embarked on this journey, aware that the unknown was unwavering. Of course, I could not recognize my wrinkled skin until I allowed myself to get there (what another blissful reminder to use sunscreen). I bet on myself in the deepest moment of change. Trapped in a 2006 Rav Four, there is no escape from myself or reality. She drives in no particular direction. I don’t recognize the roads. I search for landmarks: anything to remind myself of what home with myself should feel like. Perhaps we are traveling to nowhere, the ideal space for my knowledge of her to become comprehensible. I ask her why she came, thanking her for offering to drive. I know myself enough to recognize my preference for looking through windows, my camera in hand. She says, “Because you deserve to be seen by yourself.” I chose her because she challenges me despite the deep desire to ignore and distract myself from her terrifyingly beautiful dreams.
I see her, not knowing of her list of awards and degree titles, but for the way she holds herself. It’s captivating and reassuring. She reminds me that I am capable of becoming who I want to be. So together, we drive towards all that is unplanned, vulnerable, and aging. We accept every second of it.