I took a drive today. Around my old stomping grounds, streets I haven't driven down in years if not decades. Past the hospital where I was born, past the high school I graduated from. Down the highway where my driver's ed teacher when I was 15 kept bitching at me to lift my head off the headrest. I made sure to drive that stretch of road with my head on the headrest.

I drove past my great grandmother's old house, where some of my earliest memories were formed. It's been standing abandoned long enough that trees are growing through the porch now. Past the Yamaha dealership where I bought my first motorcycle, which is now a machine parts warehouse. Past the airport where I got my pilot's license.

I stopped at the lake by my old college and walked the trail around it, stopping at some of the little fishing piers, benches to look at the lake and the woods. I stopped at the foot bridge over the creek that feeds the lake and just looked upstream and listened to the water babble over the tree roots.

The entire time I was out, my mind could only do two things: hum Auld Lang Syne and envision swimming straight out to sea.

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