sometimes you need to just drive

I was feeling really anxious yesterday, or I was about to. I read something I wish I hadn’t and knew that the next hour was going to consist of me falling into this deep pit of nothingness, and I wasn’t about to let that happen. I threw some clothes on, got in the car and drove around for an hour listening to old Taylor Swift songs thinking about everything and nothing at all. I drove past my old school and a few places I used to know until the knot in my stomach subsided and I knew I’d be okay going home again.

I got home and my friend texted me asking if she could call me, I said of course and for the next hour I sat listening to her sobbing down the phone because she was so sad about something that had happened earlier that day. I felt useless because I was hours away and couldn’t physically do anything, all I could hear was her screaming and crying in her bathroom, I felt so far away.

It’s a little while later that I’m writing this now and I feel okay. I thought I’d feel sad or something but I don’t know, I don’t really feel anything. My friend crying on the phone sounded like my best friend who died 5 years ago and it’s the anniversary of her death in 2 days. Life is weird. I don’t feel anything right now, I’m numb but also not really, I’m just kind of floating. But I’m okay. I’ll be okay. Normally I think I would have cried by now but I haven’t, I’m still functioning and it’s alright. It’s alright. I don’t know what’s in the air right now but I needed that drive and I needed old Taylor Swift songs and to scream them at the top of my lungs not caring who saw me. I have to write these things down because otherwise I feel like they never happened, I feel like they don’t exist. No one knows I went for a drive yesterday, no one knows that what I read actually did get to me, my old friends don’t know I drove by their houses thinking about everything and nothing at all, my friend doesn’t know I sat in silence on the other end of the phone because she sounded like someone I haven’t heard in 5 years. No one knows but me, and now you. Sometimes I have to write things down because if I don’t, I feel like I don’t really exist at all.

Sometimes I need to just drive.