Route 23

It had been almost two years since her divorce. Almost twenty years spent with a man who had made her so nervous that she’d been afraid to drive to the grocery store, but the longer she was away from him, the more she discovered she was capable of. So when a friend sent her a link to a three day festival up in Michigan, the roster full of bands she’d loved even before she’d met her ex-husband. . . She felt like she needed to go. And she felt like she needed to go alone.

With trepidation and excitement, she bought her ticket and spent weeks planning her route and budgeting. Route 23 could get her the whole way there. She saw that it was called the Country Music Highway and felt the same old pang of annoyance that she always did when she thought of him. He’d loved country music and she . . . Hadn’t. She liked that she would be taking that road all the way up to punk festival.

When the day came she was nervous. There was no point denying that to herself. She was so much better, but this was longer than she’d ever driven and the furthest she’d gone on her own. She hadn’t wanted to worry about cleaning up her kitchen before getting on the road so she stopped at a diner on the way out of her town.

She ordered a plate of eggs, bacon and hash-browns and took her time savoring it. Across from her was a couple sharing a plate of chicken and waffles. She knew looking in from the outside was no way to gage a relationship but she was still aware that the easy way they were with each other was something she’d never experienced for herself.

Later she pulled onto the highway, her heart racing, some old fears cropping up, her ex's voice telling her that she couldn't do this without him echoing in the back of her head. She knew from therapy that moving on from him was a process and some days she wouldn’t think of him at all, and other days she'd spend deliberately putting thoughts of him aside, one after the other, all day. Now she shook him off and focused on the road and the meditative nature of highway travel. By the time she hit Pisgah National Forest she was confident that she could do this. She had been doing it. She pulled into the park and set up camp. She focused on the tasks at hand and she watched the sunset feeling a little bit of peace settle into her chest.

She slept easy and was back on the road an hour after sunrise. She hit a rest stop in Ohio just after she’d crossed the border into the state and she pulled into her hotel by evening. She planned to get cleaned up here and then drive the rest of the way to the festival grounds tomorrow. In the morning she sat at the little table in her hotel and sipped her coffee as she watched the sunrise in Oscoda, Michigan.

She pulled into the festival grounds and got through all the checkpoints and she thought about how afraid she would have been to do this before. To be around people, to talk to them, let them near her. But she was so far away from everything here. She felt like she was brand new. No one knew her. She didn’t know anyone. She didn’t need to be the sad, aging, abused divorcee here. She could just be who she was inside, that girl that still lived deep in her heart somewhere. The one that wanted to be a musician or an artist, the girl that thought she’d grow up and be treated well. Maybe here in this place, with this music, she could find a path back to herself.

Prompt ▼

While Route 66 is the more well known highway (east-west from Chicago to LA) ... Route 23 is a major north–south highway that runs between Jacksonville, Florida and Mackinaw City, Michigan.

Write your STORY or POEM about going on a road trip from Florida to Michigan along Route 23, and include ALL of the following phrases (and you must bold them) -

Country Music Highway
Pisgah National Forest
chicken and waffles
rest stop in Ohio
sunrise in Oscoda, Michigan

Choose TRAVEL as one of your genres.

Author's Note ▼

I rated this slightly higher because of mild references to past abuse. I wasn't sure where the line was there. This is likely the most personal piece I've ever posted here. Wish I could have written something cheerier but sometimes you just gotta go where it, whatever "it" is, takes you.