If Love Was a Highway

By guest writer Shelbie Mae

Grandview Parkway

I am 18 and you are 24. It’s one o'clock in the morning and we are the only two people at the marina park on this crisp October night. I haven’t been up this late since I was a preteen at a sleepover because I hate being up past ten. But something about being with you sends sparks of adrenaline through my body.

We lay with our backs on the cold cement, our gazes at the sky.

“I just saw a satellite,” you say.

I laugh.

“I’m serious,” you insist. You use your finger to show how the blinking stars that glide through the sky are satellites. I’ve never noticed. Cold is creeping through my jeans. It feels like I’m lying on a block of ice. If I don’t get up soon my legs will go numb.

You help me to my feet and we meander toward the Grandview Parkway. The road which is normally filled with cars during the day is empty, and I get a silly idea.

“Lay in the road with me,” I say.

“What? No.”

At this point in my life, laying in the middle of the road is old news. I’ve been doing it for years on the country roads where I grew up. I was flabbergasted when I saw The Notebook, and Allie and Noah lay in the road like they invented it.

I look both ways, find a spot right underneath the blinking yellow traffic light, and lie down. “Come on.”

“I am not doing that,” you say from the sidewalk.

I plead with you until you relent.

This is the beginning, but I don’t know it yet. I feel a seed of something starting but I’m not sure what it is or what it will turn into.

This is our first road.

Interstate 75

It takes eighteen hours to drive from Grand Rapids Michigan to Tampa Florida.

My heart is filled with excitement the first time I drive over state lines with our mostly blind Boston Terrier as my copilot to join you in Florida. We’ve been married for almost two years, and Florida will be our new home.

Our adventure unfolds as I became a nanny and you work in surveying, but we always find ourselves on Interstate 75 on our way back to Michigan.

I sleep in the passenger seat and you drink Red Bulls as the miles melt beneath our tires. I’m afraid you will fall asleep, so I pop my head up every so often to say, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you assure me.

This is not the life I envisioned when we said “I do” during the polar vortex of 2014. I thought we would settle down in my hometown. Have babies that attended the same school I did. Spend every holiday with family.

Instead, we plan our drives around when we can hit Atlanta outside of rush hour. We don’t have any babies in the backseat. And we’ve never driven home for Christmas.

Despite those things, I enjoy driving with you. Marriage isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. We struggle to communicate. But being stuck in the car for hours on end is nice because somewhere along the highway, you open up to me.

Interstate 75 becomes a comfort. A place we can unwind, listen to music or audiobooks, talk, and anticipate seeing our families or sleeping in our own bed, depending on which direction we are headed.

Route 66

We drive for over twenty-five hours straight. My back hurts from trying to find a comfortable position. All the items we think you’ll need to live for a year without me are packed into the trunk like a real-life game of Tetris.

A month ago, our world was turned upside down when you received an email through LinkedIn asking you to apply for a job.

“Should I apply?”

I looked at the name of the company and shrugged. “Why not?”

I didn’t think you would get the job.

Neither did you.

A few weeks later you were hired.

But because you were a contractor, a temporary position, we’d keep the house and I would stay in Florida. I wouldn’t have to tear my heart away from the people I loved or my dream of our first child sleeping in the beautiful bedroom I’d painted aqua blue.

Before you got the job offer, we were filling out adoption paperwork. My heart is ready for a baby, not a year-long separation. So, we drive and I mourn as the miles tally on the speedometer.

We reach our destination in time for you to put me on a plane back to Florida. We’ll see each other soon.

Then, you call me your first day on the job. “So, um, honey. They’re changing my work status from contractor to employee.”

My chest tightens. “What?”

Your words set a new future in motion; one I didn’t ask for. Or want.

I cry out to God in frustration and heartbreak. Can my heart stretch between Michigan, Florida, and California? God reminds me of my calling to love you unconditionally.

I don’t want to follow.

But I will.

A month later, after packing up or selling our carefully curated belongings, and crying in the rooms of the house we bought together--the house that held my dream of a baby—I get in the car with a girlfriend, and we drive Route 66 again, all the way to California.

To you. 

Highway 101

I pull out my phone and take another video of the rolling California hills dropping into the Pacific Ocean.

It’s just you and me.

A year ago, when we were still in Florida, I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a baby to bring to Christmas this time next year?”

You agreed. But one year later, we are spending our Christmas vacation as a duo—not a trio—meandering from San Francisco up Highway 101 and then cutting across to Portland and then back to our home just south of Sacramento.

My small-town girl's heart has been stretched and opened. Life with you has been both an exciting adventure and a crushing heartbreak. Not because of you, but because of all the roads we’ve taken.

We both think filling out adoption paperwork is unreasonable since we could move again at any moment. Adoption takes time—as well as a permanent address. When we get home we talk about the possibility of trying to get pregnant. It wasn't the plan, but—maybe?

Highway 101 (Again)

We’re driving Highway 101 to Washington with your brother.

Nine months earlier, we took Interstate 5 and then Highway 97 from California to Oregon. We moved into our sixth home, in the fourth state, in the last seven years. By now, the miles are normal. Roads are a part of our life.

The miles bring us together though the road takes us far from the people we love.

This trip up Highway 101 is different. We have a fourth passenger. My seatbelt sits under my 8 month pregnant belly. 

We take in the Olympic National Forest, Elliott Bay, and the Seattle silhouette from the deck of a ferry and the Snoqualmie Pass. You help me waddle along short trails. You are excited to become a family of three.

I am too.

Going-to-the-Sun Road

I’m sitting in the backseat entertaining our 19 month old son with Pooh Bear flashcards and magnets stuck to cake sheets. This is our first real week-long vacation as a family to someplace other than Michigan.

You are in the front seat—as you always are—driving roads that make me feel like we’re about to plunge off a cliff. I spend my time between the front and back seats, but I don’t mind.

I look back at the roads we’ve taken and realize there was a bigger picture I didn’t see.

If we stayed in Florida and continued the adoption paperwork, we may never have met our son. I may never have seen the west or met the people who’ve left imprints on my heart.

We have a lot of roads yet to travel. We’ve been talking about taking I-80 or I-94 back east. When the time comes, I hope we do.

Almost thirteen years ago we looked up at a traffic light from our backs and since then we’ve driven, explored, and traveled so much. 

We’ve lived a lot, loved a lot, and lost a lot.

But I’ve learned that every road we travel will be worth the journey as long as I’m with you.

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This essay was the second place winner in our annual Love After Babies writing contest—exclusively open to Exhale members. Learn more here.

Guest essay written by Shelbie Mae. Shelbie reads and writes in the margins of motherhood. She is the author of two books and is currently working on a series. She loves going on hikes with her husband and son and exploring the United States from the copilot seat of her car. When she's not immersed in words or going on a new adventure you can find her enjoying the outdoors, baking chocolate chip cookies, or maybe doing yoga. You can connect with her on Instagram or her website.

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