Freedom

She had hated driving lessons. Hated the strict rules and the tone of her parents voices as they snapped orders at her, hated the thinly veiled frustration and anger she heard that told her they really didn't want to be there, hated the nervous jittery feeling in her gut and knowing, knowing that she was going to screw up, was going to disapoint. Again. 

But she loved the speed.

When she was alone in the car and had an empty road in front of her, she pressed down hard on the gas pedal, windows rolled down so she could hear the roar of the wind as she few down the curvy country roads, leaving everything--worries, fears, responsibilities, even, it seemed, her body--behind.

It was like that brief moment when she woke up in the morning and stretched: the tingly feeling she got as muscles flexed and tightened and it seemed--if only for that moment--as if her spiritual self could finally burst  from the flesh that kept it trapped on earth, that she was finally free. 

Freedom was a full tank of gas and white and yellow lines that stretched into eternity, it was the motion of the wheels and the needle of the speedometer just pushing past ninety. Freedom was the passport sitting in a desk drawer at home, unstamped: an insurance that if she ever needed to go, to just get up and leave, she could, and a promise that someday, no matter how far away that day was, she would. 

Freedom was the distance increasing between her and the life she left--if only temporarily--behind, and the long stretch of wavy road in front of her, leading her anywhere she wanted to go.