Driving My Life Away
Written by Kimberly Roth : April 7, 2008
I’ve got my car all packed
With cassette tapes
And sweaters and loose change
And cheap cigarettes
I’m gonna drive through the hills
With my hand out the window
And sing ’til I run out of words
~ Rosie Thomas
Gas prices are on the rise and with them my guilt.
What is it that drives us to “get away”? Why is it that we assume “there” will be so much better than “here”? A change of scenery, an alternate perspective, a difference of opinion – all lie just beyond the next horizon… or so we’ve convinced ourselves.
This weekend I skipped town. Up all night on Thursday watching for tornadoes, I tossed random items of clothing into my backseat on Friday morning and spent my workday looking forward to the open road. Granted, this was a planned trip to visit a college friend, but after an intense week of unexpected events, a road trip felt like a spontaneous escape.
Two hours into the drive I pulled off for my first pit stop, and filled up my tank as it had only been half full when I left the office. Click… click… click… hmm… that amount use to get me an entire tank. “Oh well,” I reasoned, “this is so worth it!”
The weekend was a wonderful opportunity to relax and catch up with a friend, but at what expense? The distance between Little Rock and Dallas is over five hours… that’s ten plus hours of driving to spend a day and a half with a friend. There was a time when I would not have thought twice about this situation – roadtrips, visiting friends, reconnecting - these are the memorable moments of life.
Unfortunately, Sunday morning, the busyness of my week came crashing down on me, and left me in a melancholy state for the long drive home. Perhaps it was the (un)fortunate decision to pop in a CD on poverty and the role of the church. Perhaps it was too much self-inflicted exposure to the De-Motorize Your Soul campaign prior to take off on my little adventure. As I traversed the vast expanse of the I-30 freeway, I felt the presence of the rich young ruler riding shotgun beside me, and he was content.
I tried to scoff at the enormous RVs, hauling compact SUVs for the necessary Wal-Mart runs from the KOA campground. At the very least, I wanted to applaud myself for driving a small, fuel-efficient car. It was to no avail, as all I could dwell on was all of the ways my gas money could have been put to better use while my thumbprint on the Texas landscape could have been lighter (or, I suppose, nonexistent). My passenger looked over at me and smiled – he was pleased we hadn’t surrendered any pleasures.
Perhaps I’m overanalyzing, as I have quite the tendency to do, but I could not shake the feeling that there is something to the idea of opting out of our assumed inalienable right to mobility. How do we weigh, in a society looming on the brink of a recession and drowning under the rising price of fuel, the competing values of relationships and responsibility?
True, with all of our technological advances, it has become possible to maintain relationships across the miles with little time, effort or cost. However, at the same time, we are beginning to question the impact of exchanging face to face conversations for internet chats and online journals. We are poised to know so much more about each other these days, and yet to not truly know each other at all.
In May I fly to Austria to visit a dear friend I haven’t seen in two years. The ticket is bought and paid for, and my anticipation is growing. I wept when she moved out of the country, and I have longed to spend time laughing, chatting and dreaming out loud with her. As I approach the trip, however, I have to wonder if this will be my last. Should I really be traveling across oceans, or even across state lines, at the sacrifice of the dwindling resources of money and gasoline? Would I do better to rest at home, pay down debt, and resign myself to exchanging letters with my friends (a skill I’ve yet to develop on a regular basis)?
How do we submit ourselves to staying home for the sake of the kingdom of God?


for further reading . . .
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