Nine days ago I made the six hour trip from Chapel Hill, NC to Atlanta, GA. Six hours doesn't seem like a long car ride but honestly…six hours is a loooong car ride. Six hours in a car by yourself (and my dog- who was no help with car games) is oddly eye-opening and a little bit crazy. Maybe it's just me. Here are a few things that I learned over the course of six hours: I learned that there's only so many times you can listen to The Newsies soundtrack before you begin to contemplate modern day child labor and their exploitation in the workforce. There's only so long you can think about child labor exploitation before you get angry and begin to shout the lyrics to "THE WORLD WILL KNOW" like that'll do something tangible for the cause. I learned that Charlotte has got a lot. That's it. Ugh, those billboards. Speaking of Charlotte, if my goal is to hit Charlotte right at the 5 o'clock traffic time, I am a champion. Get on my level. I learned that I only listen to around 25% of the songs on my Itunes playlist. I never skip a Miley Cyrus song. I always skip a Justin Bieber song. Why do I still have Justin Bieber songs? I learned that there's a road right as you get to exit 5 near the North Carolina/South Carolina border that feels like a roller coaster and it's possibly my new favorite 200 feet of asphalt. So what, I have a favorite stretch of asphalt? You would too if you knew this bit of road. I learned that my dog is super against duets and would rather I stop singing all together. He's also super judgmental of my idea for a television show about hockey. To be fair, it was a terrible tv pitch. I know nothing about hockey. I learned that 5 hours into a car ride does not make singing One Direction songs Opera-style any more okay than if I were to start at the beginning of the trip. But it really is 100x more entertaining than singing their songs as they were intended. I learned that gas station egg rolls are super suspect but also kind of delicious. Ditto on the ready-to-eat taquitos. I learned that the further I drove from the people and places I know and love, the heavier my heart felt. But also, the excitement of something unknown and different made my brain spin and my stomach flip. Both in a positive way. I've always wanted to take a road trip across the country. Maybe I learned that I'm not really cut out for it. Or maybe I learned that I should do it anyway, because even though the six hours was long I had fun being with myself for a bit. I'm learning that I like who I am. That is worth the self reflection that a long-solo car ride can often lead to. Plus, I really need the time to flesh out this hockey television show idea. Around hour 4, I was REALLY onto something good.
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