Campus Blog: A Moment of Peace Found on the Road

Class, work, meetings, bed. Repeat.

My name is Eudora Linde and I am a college senior. I’m trying to pack as much as I can into my senior year before entering the “real world” while still maintaining my grades, being a positive leader with club involvement, holding a job as a waitress and keeping some sort of social life in my final weeks at Shippensburg University.

Living with five girls can have its perks. There’s always someone around who is willing to hang out or generally available to do whatever you want to do with that roommate.

Being with that many people on a constant basis can get a little crazy. I’m a social person and love being around other people, but sometimes, I just need to get away.

A car ride can be one of the best ways to get out and unwind, even if I’m not the one driving. There is something about the sound of other cars going past mine on the highway and the way that the whole mood of a car can change when that one really good song comes on the radio that keeps me hooked.

It’s a harmless addiction that I am proud to claim.

So when one of my roommates (nicknamed “Hutch”) asked if I wanted to go on a short field trip with her, I agreed. I love college, but sometimes (just as living with that many people will also do to me), I feel the need to escape the bubble that surrounds campus and the quintessential college town to break out into the “real world.”

We left town just as it was starting to get dark and picked up the highway so that Hutch could meet up with her mother to exchange some paperwork.

At first, Hutch and I were talking a lot -- really fast, trying to catch up with the other’s day. Soon though, we settled into silence.

The only sounds in the car were the radio, the hum of the car’s wheels on the pavement and other cars passing us by. My phone would go off periodically with one person or another trying to get in touch with me, but I ignored it.

I have a lot going on right now, trying to balance my leadership positions in Phi Sigma Pi and Student Senate while keeping up with my school work and trying to run a campaign for Homecoming Queen (more on that later). I wanted to escape for a bit.

I pushed the car seat back a little and watched the clouds pull back and forth over the half moon. Hutch and I spoke a little every few minutes, usually to make a comment about another car on the road or the song that had just come on the radio. But we were otherwise silent and I loved it.

It was finally time to myself that was spontaneously carved out of my day. It was time in a car with a good friend, knowing that we didn’t have to speak to be understood by the other, but enjoying the time just the same.

Twenty minutes later, we were pulling into a restaurant’s parking lot to meet Hutch’s mother. Though I’ve only met her once before, she came up to me and gave me a huge hug that echoed of my own mother in West Chester. After grabbing some ice cream with us and catching up, we parted about an hour after arriving.

The trip back was much the same as the trip to the parking lot, but with new feelings. I knew that I wasn’t on the way out anymore. I was headed back to school to my house, away from the crisp fall night sky and back to meetings, papers and obligations.

After we got home, I spent a few more minutes with Hutch watching TV before running up to my room to get changed for formal meetings that I knew would keep me out until around midnight.

The little “field trip,” has stayed with me since -- my little moment of freedom from responsibilities and worrying. I don’t know when our next road trip will be but I’m already looking forward to it and the peace that it would bring.

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