Wednesday Evening in May

I’m driving the same road I took as a kid, heading into the city with my family. Back then, the trip felt big—exciting, full of possibility. Now, it’s just part of my routine.

Twenty-five years later, I’m a middle-aged woman, a mother of two, divorced, a homeowner, working a job I love. The road itself hasn’t changed much, but the landscape has. The magnificent trees that once lined the way—tall, steady, familiar—are long gone, replaced by new homes, new roads. Progress, I suppose, but also loss. The markers of childhood erased, rewritten by time and construction.

And yet, some things remain. The Deadman curves—sharp, relentless, still demanding respect from every driver who takes them. And the radio—cycling through the same songs, the classics that have survived decades. I catch a familiar melody and realize I’ve heard it here before, on this very road, in another lifetime.

As a child, I was always in a hurry to grow up. Waiting for birthdays, for milestones, for freedom. Now, time moves so fast it’s hard to catch my breath. The days blur into each other, weeks slipping by before I even realize. I wonder—was time always this quick? Or is it just that we stop measuring it in anticipation and start losing it in routine?

Today was good. I trained a new teller at work, got a lot done. The cough I’ve been fighting is still hanging on, but it’s improving. Tonight’s goal is to work three hours, make $60, and be home by 8:20.

The usual chores are waiting—laundry, dishes, a basement that needs cleaning, a lawn mower that still isn’t fixed. But Saturday, kiddo wants to go hiking. That takes priority. If a teenager is excited to get outside, you take them. Everything else can wait.

And I wonder—what does the future want to know? It’s easy to ask questions about tomorrow, to wonder where life is headed. But what if the future is curious about us? About the choices we made, the roads we traveled, the songs we listened to over and over again. Maybe it wants to understand why some things remain untouched while others disappear.

For now, I’ve got signal again. Back to my audiobook, back to the drive. The road carries me forward, but it also holds the past.