The U-Turns of Youth

Let’s go for a drive

I remember my first car like a good old friend. I inherited a 2002 Honda Accord V6 coupe from my auntie. It shined with a pearlescent emerald exterior and revealed a creamy leather on the inside.

My car was an escape from the confines of my parents’ house, allowing me slip out of sleepy suburbia to hang with friends at the secret spot. My college boyfriend and I affectionately dubbed it “Death Cab for Cutie” because of its shifty transmission. I drove and loved that car until the odometer nearly hit 300,000 miles. 

The miles and years of my life keep ticking up. I turned 29 today, and I'm watching scenes from my youth pass by like I'm gazing out the car window, listening to music flowing from the stereo.

2008

I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my friend Hannah’s Volkswagen Golf. Hannah is an effortlessly cool high school senior, and I’m just a goofball freshman. Fresh out of water polo practice, our chlorinated hair fogs the windows.  We laugh, probably at something funny Hannah said. “Have you heard this song?” she asks, plugging the aux cord into her iPod. “Umm, not yet” I waver, feeling totally uncool. The bubbling intro of MGMT’s Time to Pretend fills our ears. Hannah playfully drifts her car from side to side as I grin from ear to ear. 

This is our decision to live fast and die young

We've got the vision, now let's have some fun

a symbol of my youth

2013

My best friend Chels and I cruise around campus in her white Honda Civic. We’ve got a gallon of gas, $15 between our checking accounts, and endless conversation to make the best of our Saturday. No lectures or midterms to slow us down. “Dude, Rach, you know that summertime feeling?” Chels thumbs through a playlist with one hand still on the wheel. Her car vibrates to the bouncy base as she sings along to Back Then. High off the freedom of fleeing our hometown, I lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes. Breathe in – I wanna hold this summertime feeling in my lungs. 

Baby I've been missing those days,

If you wanna come and find me look on memory lane

My gal, Chels

2016

I'm road-tripping down the California coast with my college housemates. The five of us jammed into the cheapest rental car we could find. It's our last spring break before we graduate and dive headfirst into the real world. We gaze out at the boundless Pacific Ocean. I peer at each woman. Is she envisioning all her possibilities, too? I'm hit with waves of excitement and fear. What lies ahead? Where will we be next year and the next? I crank down the window to run my fingers through the air. The crisp wind whips our hair like tangled seaweed on the shoreline. Let's take the long route to make this moment last. We float along to It’s Real by Real Estate.

I don't know who's behind the wheel 

Sometimes I feel like I don't know the deal

When I tell you how I feel 

Believe me when I say it's real

U.S. Route 1

If life is one long road trip, I wish I could make a U-Turn and relive the earlier legs of the drive. As a kid, I couldn’t wait to get my license & a car, pick up my friends, and blast our favorite pop punk CDs. I couldn’t wait to grow up and go wherever the hell we wanted to go. Oh, how I miss those days.

As an adult, driving feels more like a chore than an escape. It’s just another checkbox on the to-do list. We’ve swapped our CDs for podcasts, listening to other people’s chatter to ease the monotony of commuting and running errands. 

When I was young, I yearned to be older. And now that I'm older, I miss being young. Pablo Picasso said, “It takes a very long time to be young.” But what does it mean to be young while growing old? There are idioms like "young at heart," "live with childlike wonder," "old soul," and "wise beyond your years" that point us towards some direction, like a GPS orienting our identities and livelihoods. I can accelerate onward as a responsible adult, optimizing for money-making & self-sufficiency. Or I can hit the brakes and hold on to youth, rebel against my inner parent, and break my own damn rules. Perhaps I’ll call up an old friend. We can hit the road and forget our obligations for a while. 

I suppose our society will keep on setting the standards for what a person should do at a certain age. At 16, you get your driver’s license. At 18, you leave the nest for college. In your twenties, you take all these twists and detours thinking you know the right direction, but you end up getting lost. So you stop. You reroute and find a new path.

In my 29 years of living, I've learned that there's no existing roadmap for life. I’m my own cartographer designing the map as I go. I’ll keep driving forward, singing along to a never-ending playlist of new favorite songs. And I’ll make sure to bring a friend or two or a few along for the ride. We’ll make plenty of pit stops on the way to the end, wherever the end may be. 

We’ll park the car, get out, and take in the wondrous view.

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Thank you for subscribing to Connection Crave. Each week, I alternate between posting personal essays like this one and my newsletter, WorkLife Harmony.

This week’s theme song is 29 by Yaeji, which I’ve been bumping in my car.