-- 9:02 PM--

This is it.

For the longest time I had been having a hard time accepting the fact that I’d be graduating.

It’s finally over.

Then graduation came and went, and yeah, it was weird. I had this surreal experience crossing over the stage to get my empty diploma cover where I couldn’t hear anything despite the numerous people yelling my name. I must have looked like a deer in headlights when the photographer snapped my picture. I have no idea. I kinda blacked out.

I’m leaving.

Yet, I never felt like it really hit me. Until today.

Today was the day I finally packed up my things into my car and left. Put all my stuff in boxes, threw out the piles of trash that had built up over the years. Come to think of it, I may have thrown out almost as much as I packed. The Grunk would have been in heaven.

As I sit in my car, ready to leave and wishing the windows worked, I realize that I have nothing left in the house that I had lived in for the past three years. That’s when it hit me. I’m actually leaving. I realize that I may never again pull out of this driveway in this car and head back to Villa Park again.

VAAAVAAAVAAAA-VAAAAAROOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

As I turn the ignition I am greeted with the deafening sound of a small airplane. Having no exhaust will do that do a car. I know it’s going to be a long couple hours.

As I drive, I feet an increasingly strong longing to go back. Turn around. Not leave. It’s as if I had left something there. I decide to put on my mp3 player for music, even though wearing headphones while driving is technically illegal. Whatever, I need some music, and the car radio isn’t doing it for me.

“Choking on the thought of leaving / Drinking to keep from sobbing…”

Wow. How oddly appropriate, random play list generator. Except the drinking part. No roadie sodies for this guy.

“From sour home Chicago / Hear it beating far away…”

Whoa. That was it. As cheesy and cliché as it sounds, I think I knew what I left behind me.

Some say, “Home is where the heart is.” Others say, “A home is just a place to store your shit.” I’d never really considered the BFH my home. When I was going back to my parent’s place, then I would say I was going home. Despite the fact that over the past three years I’ve lived in the BFH more than I’ve lived with my parents, I’d never really thought about it being home. But this longing makes me think twice. I’d never noticed it before, but every time I’d left in the past, I knew I’d be back soon. I also realize that just about every material possession that I own is surrounding me, traveling with me. Over the years, everything I own had in some way or another made it back to school with me. There is nothing of mine waiting for me where I was going. How could I call my parent’s house my home if my heart was still in Champaign and everything I own is packed into the back of a 1988 Toyota Camry?

BA-CRUNK!

Um…did something just fall off my car?

BA-CRUNK!

Nope, it’s still there. It just doesn’t like bumps.

Ah, the memories that were also in that car. You could take one look at it and never believe that it got us to and from Florida on spring break. But it made it. It had given so many people rides, driven people countless times between Champaign and Chicago, gotten me so many speeding tickets. But recently it had been having problems. First, the axel became bent in such a way that it started making popping noises as I drove. It almost sounded like one of those children’s toys that rolls along the ground and pops colored balls around. Except way less fun. Then, a hole formed in the top of the gas tank, meaning I could no longer fill the tank to the top. Soon the muffler blew into pieces and fell off in a parking lot, which was followed shortly thereafter by the rest of the exhaust system up to the catalytic converter while I was driving on the highway. Lastly, just days before graduation, the catalytic converter started dragging on the ground. I figured a coat hanger would be able to hold it up for at least a little while, and hoped I’d at least make it home so my dad could take a look at it.

What am I doing in the middle of the highway?

While I’m basking in memory, my car suddenly starts veering back and forth. A lot. I slow down but it doesn’t help much. I watch the headlights dance back and forth across my lane and realize what it must be like to drive drunk. There is no rhythm to the veering, so I just have to suck it up and grab the wheel ready to react as fast as possible. It keeps me awake if nothing else. Attempting to pass trucks becomes pretty horrifying though.

Chicago – 128 miles

Road signs. I wish I had a road sign for my life. Something to tell me how far I am from having a job, or a wife. Some of my friends do have this. They can see their futures in front of them. I’m just driving along a dark road without the headlights on. And with all this veering, I’m not even sure I’m on the road anymore.

Weeeeeee-ooooooo…Honk Honk

Apparently you can drive like a drunk for about 100 miles before you get stopped.

Just after going through Peotone, and by the way, I LOVE Peotone, I get pulled over by a State Trooper.

“What’s the problem here, sir?”

“Sorry, I think my axel is bent…this has never happened before”

“You are all over the road sir, you can’t continue driving this car.”

“I’m just on my way home, I’m being very careful, everything I have is in the car.”

“I don’t care. You can’t be driving this car. Give me your license and insurance card and I’ll follow you slowly to the weigh station a mile down.”

She follows me to the weigh station and tells me that I need to have someone pick me up. I call my mom and she agrees to come get me. The cop holds onto my license for the next 45 minutes while she chats it up with the people at the weigh station and I watch some Curb on my laptop. Finally she comes over to give me the license back. I try to see what I can do about my car.

“Hey, I think all the shaking was due to all the added weight, if I just move this to another car could I at least drive it home?”

“No sir. That car is not drivable.”

“But I think it’ll be fine if I could just move all the stuff out of it.”

“I don’t care. If you drive that car on my highway you will be arrested.”

“Well, can I leave it here until tomorrow at least?”

“Only if you have it out of here by the first thing in the morning.”

“So if I can’t drive it, and I can’t leave it here, what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, I don’t care, but if you drive that thing you will be arrested.”

And then she drives off.

After a few minutes my mom gets here and we move everything into the van. She tells me to drive it anyway, we’d only be on “her highway” for another ten or so miles. However, the catalytic converter starts dragging and throwing up sparks as soon as I leave. Now, since sparks and a leaky gas tank don’t really mix, I decide I should probably take care of this. I get out and see that the hanger broke. So I get another hanger, jack up the car, put it back up, and start driving again. That gets me just past the toll on 294 before it breaks again. My mom says we should just leave it.

So now my car is stuck in Markham on 159th Street. We’re junking it. Maybe it’s for the best. A load off my shoulders. A reason to get out of my past and start thinking about the future.

Get a job, buy a new car.