Our Highway Town

This is how everything started. This is when I realized how much I needed to leave. On the big yellow bus labeled “14”, driving all of these lonely kids down these lonely streets. I realized too quickly, the roaring silence of this town, it was the loudest silence I had ever heard. All of the older, broken kids called this place worthless, a highway town. “Highway Town.” Two words that left me staring into the empty abyss that were my thoughts.

Our highway town, where people stopped on their way to somewhere good. Somewhere better, Somewhere greater. This town was nothing but a small stop in the middle of Indiana. Surrounded by cornfields and chaos. Gas, sleep, food, that’s all anyone ever needed from us. Nothing but lonely roads and restaurants made up of tears and heartbreak of lonely souls who have never made it past the four walls of this place.

These are the same four walls I would drive between everyday after school. The walls I never dared to go past, the walls that held in all my tears, suffocating me. I had a desire to push them down and run away from the silence. It was a buzzing in your ear that everyone chose to ignore, but I couldn’t. These silences were screams in the back of my mind.

This highway town. These lonely roads. The suffocating silence.

I moved away, I started a family, I got out of there, but the whispers of the loud silence always left me coming back. It pulled me in like a whirlpool, but for some odd reason I loved being lost in the screams of silence. The more I came back, the more I realized this wasn’t just a place to stop for gas along the way to somewhere greater.

This is where I stayed out too late, breaking curfew, just to whisper to the moon and scream my secrets to the stars. Where I found a moment of bliss driving through the tunnel of trees, my favorite hide away when I just couldn’t do it anymore. Where I pulled over every night, climbed upon my car and watched the sunset beyond the Wellman water tower.

This is where I fell for a boy like the rain fell on these lonely roads. As eager for him as the drops were for the ground, while the Earth never drowned, I always did. This is where I believed every senior boy who watched me like prey through the swarming halls, where I watched my best friend move away and never come back. This is where I swore I hated everyone I had ever met but still wore my heart on my sleeve as if I had no fear of losing it.

It’s the home of the boy on the bleachers and the popular girl who actually cared that I existed. Memories left of jumping in a pool in all of my clothes one summer night, and drinking too much at a house part on West St. Where I watched as people came in and out of my life, breaking little parts of me off each time.

I got to watch my best friends fall in love at the Applebees on 9. Watch my sister grow into someone she was proud of, painting her own world along the way. Where I witnessed all of my brother's dreams come true and my parents fall in love all over again. This is where I married my best friend. I filled these lonely roads with laughter, tears, and secrets I'll never tell.

As I drive on to the greater places I always dreamed of, I stop along these Highway Towns. As I pump gas and look over at the lonely girl with puffy eyes. Oh sweet girl, this is more than just a stop along the way. This is your home. This is what will make you unforgettable.