drive

I guess if you want to get a handle on something it’s best to start by putting a handle on it.

And by handle I mean definition.

When I was overseas I got the opportunity to drive in a car with the steering wheel on the other side in a country where they drive on the other side of the road.

I saw an old picture of me there and it hit me.

That’s how you make me feel.

Sure, the physics of the engine are the same and the point of getting in the car is the same and even the traffic laws are, give or take, basically the same… but it’s different.

That’s how I feel around you.

Not better or worse. Just different. Awkward.

Sure, there’s a certain sense of excitement I haven’t felt in awhile but there’s also a nervousness. Like I don’t exactly know what I’m doing. I know what I’m supposed to be doing and I know how to do it in theory but actually doing it seems trickier than it needs to be.

I see everyone else doing it. Nonchalantly. Seemingly without a care in the world, but my instincts are always to turn the wrong way and my sense of spacing is all screwed up. All of my previous experiences actually work against me.

Work against us.

Every time we’re together I keep waiting for it to get easier but it doesn’t.

And I don’t know if I want it to.

I’m scared that it won’t.

And I’m terrified it will.

Like any good metaphor, a car is a vehicle. It’s not about the destination; it’s just the way to get there.