Lots o' journals
age 14 to 24
More words soon.
D R I V E
A young woman sits at her breakfast table. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon but it might as well be midnight. Most days she gets along just fine, but every now and then her mind runs away. Like an angry, unpredictable child packing up her things, she leaves the family for good. Armed with a tiny suitcase and big princess pillow, she stubbornly marches out the front door. Five-years-old and all on her own. She compromises for a tall tree in the front yard until her mother, draped in a soft bathrobe, coaxes the teary little girl down and into bed. She doesn’t like the way life has panned out. It’s not that she hasn’t been blessed. Life just doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to. Like they said it would. Enjoy the ride, her father’s words ring in her ear, If you can’t enjoy the ride, what’s the point of getting in the car? The question burns slowly at the edge of her thoughts. What is the point?
Sandals kicked to one side, she sits cross-legged on a metal folding chair. Dirty dishes stack up next to the sink. A manageable task, but not ugly enough to be pressing yet. The dream she had this morning flashes by in a series of images… It’s late afternoon and the sun’s heat creeps in on the concrete structure… Strips of light shine between the broken shades of her kitchen window. Reggeaton music plays just outside, interspersed with loud hammers and staple guns. The men are updating the building to meet the city’s earthquake codes. Only a thin wall has divided them for nearly two months. She overheard the workers joking one day, This won’t save them from The Big One. When that fucker comes, nobody is safe. She wondered if he was right. It was becoming ever more clear that security is nothing but an illusion.
One Saturday night, she was met by a small swamp in place of the kitchen floor. Roughly a quarter of the kitchen ceiling was removed. The seismic project had failed to tarp the naked exterior adequately before the rain came. We’ll have the ceiling back by the end of the week, next Monday at the latest, the contractor had told her. Three Mondays have passed and debris still rains from the hole where the ceiling used to be. Small chunks of drywall come down when the work is particularly rough outside. Sometimes she sweeps the dust away when everyone has gone home, but more will fall tomorrow. So she wears flip-flops around the small apartment instead. She’ll vacuum when the project is finally over.
A large light blue SUV sits in a parking garage. It’s late afternoon and the sun’s heat creeps in on the concrete structure. A woman is looking for something under the driver’s seat. A young boy stands on the opposite side of the car. It’s the boy she nanny’s every day. They are about to walk the two blocks to his school, but she can’t find what she’s looking for. She sees his blonde head peak above the window on the passenger side. Stay right there please! I’ll be just a minute, I just need my… She looks up again and he is out of sight. She runs around to the other side. The boy is kneeling down to look at something on the floor. She sighs with relief, Stay right there please, I’ll be one second… He ignores the distraught babysitter. Back on the driver’s side she continues to look for the missing thing. The clock on her phone says she has just enough time to get him to class, but she can’t forget that thing. She continues searching, every once in a while listening for the young boy's humming. She looks back at her phone. Ten minutes have passed. She doesn’t hear the boy anymore. Shit, shit, shit… But he is right where she left him, staring at a quarter on the ground. He is officially fifteen minutes late for school, but she can’t find that thing. Alright, it’s time to go, buddy. Where’s your backpack? He just had it… She quickly checks the backseat for his bag and the cycle begins again. The thing still missing. The boy out of sight. The woman frantically keeping and losing track of the boy, the thing, and the time.
Something shifted in her 24 days ago. An epiphany came like a wave. She always dreamt of being an actress. But one day, twenty-four days ago, she didn’t want to act anymore. Just like that. Her desire flipped in a moment. Like night and day. At first, the revelation came as a much needed relief. A huge weight off her shoulders. At twenty-three-years-old, the dream walked out. Like the spark in an ill-fated relationship. Truth wakes you up in the middle of the night. Suddenly, you realize the attraction is gone. You gaze down at the person laying next to you. Your mind races to hold on, but your gut knows it’s over. There in the dark, the thing drifts away. You can almost see it leaving you. Her fire burned out. Perhaps the light had gone out some time ago, but stubbornness and tenacity kept her going. But where did it go? She wonders. Dreams don’t just vanish. Had another girl caught the bug at the precise moment she lost it? All those sleepless nights conjuring up versions of her soon to be reality. She would not stop until she made it. Hollywood owned her soul. However, sitting at the breakfast table today, she feels no desire to continue. No desire to audition, to work on a character, or even to live in this city anymore. The once inspiring Los Angeles sun exhausts her now.
As the afternoon wears on, the city churns outside, and the girl sits motionless with her thoughts. Unable to attend to the tasks of the day. Her mind bounces back and forth between the dream from this morning and the dream from before. A young boy waits on his nanny to go to school. A small child waits on her mother to bring her inside. She grows up and gets stuck looking for something she’ll never find. Without the dream, she is lost. Perched on a metal-folding chair, she’s back in the tree, waiting for Mother to bring her inside. But this time, Mother won’t come out in her bathrobe. This time, she is alone, staring at a quarter on the parking garage floor. The nanny is making her late for school. If she could just let go, maybe she would get off this chair and back on the road. But where is she going? Without the dream, she has no direction.
She sits at the breakfast table with the dream. Neither of them making a move towards Goodbye, they hold on to the shell of the thing. A piece of her wants to make it work. But the illusion has faded. You cannot drive with a dead dream in your car. Mother isn’t coming. And it’s time to climb down. In three weeks, she will turn twenty-four. A new dream will come in the middle of the night. And the boy will get to school on time.
Maybe her Daddy should have said,
If you don’t start driving, you’ll never enjoy the ride.