Remember when?

A spontaneous midnight drive, without a destination set into the onboard GPS

The pulse of the tires on the road are only interrupted but the occasional pothole or blinkerless asshole.

Reminiscing about being a child, when we were convinced that the moon was following us, as we sat in the back seat and cruised the shoreline in uncle’s old station wagon.

Carelessly and buoyantly holding my hand out of the window, pushing my palm against the resisting wind.  Letting the wind blow through my fingers, a tender feeling I can compare to the tingling of my toes sifting through the wet sand at the ocean’s edge on a summer night.

The excitement of the last day of school, and no perception of what the summer would bring. but not a glimmer of fretfulness, for it was exactly what we dreamed.

Riding bikes to the “main hang” and letting it crash to the ground with the wheel still spinning, as there was absolutely no time to responsibly lean it up on its kickstand.  Cracking jokes and raiding the corner store for candy with the leftover change from lunch.  Wasting the minutes away making any scheme or dream come to life.

Frantically checking my watch to be home on time designated by mom.  Boy oh boy, could I time out how long it would take to get home from any corner of town on any given day.

Mere seconds winding down as I closed in on the garage door, the street light would kick on as I kicked off my shoes and burst through the side door.  On the nose nearly every time!

Free to do it all again the next day…

Thinking about all of this now, with my anxiety being the reason for this midnight drive, brings a tear to my eye thinking about all that has changed.  I question anything and everything all at once, “why do we need to stop all of that?”, “Why not be passionate about silly things?”, “what’s so wrong with being nerdy?”

“why take all this shit so serious?”

© 2018 Joseph Emerson @ WhatsInsideAMadmansHat.com