I drive

I watch in the rear view mirror as her eyes start to droop. A peaceful look comes over her face. She smiles and falls asleep. I turn up the radio, head to the outskirts of town, and get lost finding me. These days when she sleeps in the car, I’m not a mom, I’m not a wife. I’m a woman listening to the radio, sipping coffee, getting lost in the snow covered fields and frozen river. My heart warms at the sight of the red barn sitting on the hill of white. I drive past farms, fields, cemetaries. I am still the girl who sat in the window seat, walls covered with quotes cut from magazines, music playing,  thinking and writing. I don’t write poems of teenage angst anymore. My days are filled with pouring out, caring for my husband and daughter. Thinking time is scarce, alone time is forgein. At night, I collapse into bed, too weary to think. In the morning, I turn off the alarm and sleep until tiny hands pat my face. So, when naptime nears, I drive. I find myself in the bumpy roads and country songs on the radio. For an hour a day, I find my way back to me.

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