Getting away with it

“I feel like I’m getting away with something,” I tell Sharon on the phone the day before I leave. “Even though I’ve done all this reading and planning, and all. I guess it’s just that this trip is just about me — I don’t have to ask anyone, I’m not responsible for anyone — I know that sounds dumb. I mean, I’m a grown-ass woman!”

“Yeah, it’s a woman thing. Men go around swinging their dicks and expecting that whatever they do’ll be fine. I mean, they never even question it. We feel like we need permission.”

Of course Sharon knows this is a ridiculous generalization. But she is nothing if not always on my side. When Sharon fell from the heavens as my randomly assigned roommate at UNC-Chapel Hill, it was instantaneous kismet. If I murdered my mother, Sharon’d find a way to make it not my fault. She had it coming, she did.

Nevertheless, here I am the next morning, unapologetically revving up the 2018 Nissan Rouge I bought yesterday. My son Isaac waves me down the driveway, then does the traditional “silly dance” as I drive off. I invented this dance — a very loosely interpreted cancan — years ago to cut everyone’s sadness and awkwardness when my husband and I had just split and the kids were headed off to their father’s house for “his” week.

Isaac’s final advice: “Mom, any time you get a chance to go to the bathroom, go. You never know how long it’ll be till the next stop.”

Well said, Isaac. A rule for living, in fact. My tiny bladder is legendary.

Armed with that, off I head on the slow road to Delaplane, Virginia.