Never Free, Never Me

“Deprived of all his thoughts, the young man struggles on and on – he’s known a vow onto his own, that never from this day his will they’ll take away.” ~ Metallica

My car crawled along the road like an overgrown turtle, rain pounding on the windshield in torrents that made visibility completely impossible. The liquid percussion all but drowned out the mournful tune of some country song that laboriously crawled out of my sound system. My windshield wipers, working in a near frenzy, were about as effective as a squeegee on a swimming pool floor. I couldn’t see a thing, and what was worse, I was paranoid that at any moment, my car would decide to float right off the road.

“Damnitt,” I swore, pulling over to the side of the road and cutting the engine. The now-silent speakers only made the rain seem louder than ever. I pulled my knees up to my chest and covered myself with my jacket to stay warm. Serves me right for not changing after practice, I thought glumly. Shorts were not the most pleasant thing to wear, especially with the heat now off.

Suddenly a car blew past, going at least sixty and spraying water ten feet into the air. I could barely make out its shape, but I followed the sound until it disappeared behind the next hill, wondering how the hell it was managing not to hydroplane in what was quickly becoming a new Nile River. Idiotic as it was, however, I couldn’t help but feel a spark of admiration for the driver.

My current situation seemed sadly ironic. The past year had been very much like a rainstorm I was not quite brave enough to confront – a rainstorm whose clouds had been accumulating since I was old enough to become aware of them. This year, all the metaphorical shit had finally hit the metaphorical fan – needless to say, the result was messy.

First, of course, was the ongoing problem with my dad. He and I never saw eye-to-eye… unfortunately for me, that didn’t agree with him too much, as he was a chronic control freak. Equally unfortunate was the fact that I was only 16, jobless, and completely at his mercy for the privileges others defined as “having a life.”

Second – and trivial in retrospect, but unfortunately a big deal at the time – was the fact that my boyfriend of six months had broken up with me in November. Young, clueless, and in love, I’d teetered between depression, denial, and conviction that I could somehow “win him back” (he, of course, had not shared this conviction at all.)

On top of that, I had a heavy workload from school, was having continuous problems with my left ankle, was on shaky terms at best with my friends, got very little sleep (in fact, I was battling a near-chronic caffeine addiction), and yet still expected myself to be, for my self-imposed standards, “perfect.” The cumulative effect of everything caused me to regress back to a habit I’d thought I was over for good – and this time, instead of hiding it, I told my parents. Who flipped out.

After that, I suppose you could say things got better. Now, in early May, I was focused mainly on Track – and even though I wasn’t doing as well as I had hoped, at least it was somewhat of an outlet. But internally, I still hadn’t truly recovered. Instead of struggling through the blinding downpour, I’d simply stopped moving. And now, cold and gloomy on the side of the road, the storm showed no sign of letting up.

I don’t know why, but suddenly, staring at the sheet of water on the windshield, I got angry. Not just mildly irritated, but really furiously angry. There were better things to do, after all, than sit of the side of the fucking road and wait for the indefinite end of a rainstorm! Like everything else recently, I was letting the weather control me in a way I’d once sworn nothing would. God, life was more than just passive participation, wasn’t it? And if that wasn’t the rule, then, well… fuck normality. I’d had enough.

Kicking down the clutch hard enough to make my ankle give a protesting stab of pain, I started the engine. The windshield wipers whirred to life just as the closing chords of the country song played. Irritated, I changed the radio station. The explosion of sound that met me was a mix of driving guitar and a harsh, powerful voice I would later identify as Metallica. The music totally drowned out the rain.

I grinned as I put the car in gear and gunned the gas, shifting quickly and forcefully as the speedometer spiraled upward and water splashed in all directions. And that’s when I realized, to my great surprise, that it wasn’t what I expected. Instead of shooting off the road to certain death, I stayed right on track. And that’s when I realized, to my great surprise, that I could see.