By now, the drive is an equation. At the inception of my fourth year of higher education, I suppose it isn’t too strange that I would start finding formulas in my everyday life, but I was still a little shocked to discover the calculations now come second-nature as we hurtle down the highway. If we stop for gas and snacks separately, we’ll have to incur increased probability of a speeding ticket to make it down in less than six hours. It’s three hours from the signs for the Lion’s Den Adult Superstore — two hours once we pass the billboard that promises to tell me if I am going to heaven or hell with one call to a toll-free number.
Four years into a psychology major, I would have hoped that at this point my skills in understanding human emotion would have surpassed my abilities in mathematics, or cartography — both of which leave a little bit to be desired. But the experience of being in that car on my way back to school, the feelings that hit me each time we pass Landmark X, Y or Z, are the only things that can’t be plotted on a curve.
First year found me unable to shake the permanence of my leaving home and heading south, despite the fact that I had already booked an Amtrak ticket home for fall break. While I had been preparing myself for culture shock as I crossed the Mason-Dixon Line for the first time as an incoming University student, I was not prepared for the two-story white cross statue looming right outside of West Virginia. That landmark made me acutely aware that I wasn’t in Jersey anymore, Toto. I was excited and terrified and so distracted that my parents had to point out the first signs marking exits for Charlottesville.
We caravanned into second year — my mother and I in the family SUV, while my dad drove solo in a rented U-Haul carrying the couches and kitchen table I had promised to my roommates when we signed our lease. This time, I felt unstoppable. I had wonderful friends to return to, a job lined up as a research assistant, real adult furniture and some degree of seniority at the University. Not to mention I had a rudimentary knowledge of the route we were taking — I called my dad from the car and confidently told him to pull off a few exits past the billboard for “Party Cheap Rentals,” with the faded yellow chick painted on it. There was a Sheetz with relatively clean restrooms close to the highway.
I got behind the wheel for the first time third year, while my mother dozed in the passenger's seat. She had been running on little sleep, shuttling back and forth between her office and the hospital to see my dad, and had made it just past the Maryland border before she needed to switch shifts. I don’t think she actually got much rest — I’m a terrible driver and I could see her hanging on, white-knuckled, to her seatbelt as I careened through the Blue Ridge Mountains. We pulled over on Skyline Drive, underneath the sign for the Endless Caverns, and she drove the rest of the way. It was the quietest trip we’ve ever made.
This year, I felt more conflicted with every mile-marker we passed. I had spent the summer moving out of the house I had lived in my whole life, and was now on my way back to a place that was feeling more and more like home. My excitement to return for my final year in Charlottesville was tempered with anger and sadness over the rallies that took place in August. As we approached Exit 121, I truly didn’t know what I was feeling.
Very little about my time at U.Va. has felt formulaic. I’ve faced personal crises and major life changes, while the University has seen institutional failure, and the City of Charlottesville has been plagued with violence and hatred. And while life’s uncertainties ensure that the emotional experience of returning is never quite the same, I can trust that those six hours, 380 miles and string of landmarks always lead me back to this city and the people who have gotten me through it all. While I don’t know what my fourth and final year has in store for me, I can take comfort in the fact that I won’t be facing it alone.
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