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The drive home is always easier. Not because I’m leaving, but because it’s when I can catch my breath after some relentless debauchery I excuse as being for a special occasion.
I’m at an age where my body will feel this over the next two days, spent recovering physically and emotionally. Luckily, exhaustion numbs the senses, and makes the time pass quicker on those long stretches where distance is measured in hours.
Cousins, British humour, heartbreak, shots, gluttony, rumble strips, but never enough time.
The 401 is the kind of highway that Springsteen used to write about on his heartland folk albums, the only ones I ever liked. The songs were never about a road itself, but about all the lust and hate and change that happened between two people when they travelled along that road.
In the same way, driving the 401 has always been when I have a chance to find myself. It often leaves me feeling like a different person when I get to where I’m going.