“You’re here for the holidays, right?” my manager asked me the Friday before Christmas.

“I… Yes. Most likely.” I pause. “I’m not sure.”

He laughed at whatever scheme I’m plotting in my head. A broken foot weeks back had caused me to cancel my flight home to Raleigh, sending off some penned waterworks to American Airlines asking them to ignore their “no refunds” policy. I got back eye rolls from customer service, along with a ‘for use within the next twelve months’ credit voucher, and a holiday season with nowhere to be.

“I’m going to stay here, probably. But I got to thinking: what if I just took off and drove. What if?”

Since cancelling the flight, my foot had gotten better before doctors had primed me to expect. I didn’t have to wear the eyesore of a medical boot I paid too much for. The surgeon I consulted with would not appreciate hearing that I switched over to my Nikes several weeks before we agreed to. However, I can rest easy knowing the chances he stumbles upon this piece are minimal. And I still haven’t picked up my cycling shoes and made it out to a spin class, so it to be fair, I felt like I was still taking it easy.

Back at my apartment, I popped a double dose of melatonin — a catalyst for me to meditate on the decision and get some shut eye should I choose to hit the roads. Three or so hours later, I packed two duffle bags and headed south on a nine hour drive — knowing I’d have to do it all over again right after Christmas dinner.

I gave my mom a call when I was twenty minutes or so from home, to find she was at Costco buying industrial sized Head and Shoulders to add to her never-depleted reserves at home. I knew she would be as confused by the surprise as she was elated, and that the story would end up online for her to garner some Facebook clout from the other Baby Boomers. I was not wrong on either account.

On Christmas morning, the circadian rhythm of corporate America had me up at seven. My aunt made something she had found on Tasty for breakfast, and my uncle found ways to micro-complain about it instead of admitting that it could be fine as is. I tried to nap around lunchtime to stockpile enough energy to make it through the midnight hours, but the vocal excitement of grandchildren and great-grandchildren had other plans for me. Brady got a miniature John Deere Gator — much like the industrial one his tobacco farming grandfather parades around in.

As the little ones unwrapped their gifts and we lamented the rapid pace of passing time over unseasoned mashed potatoes, I knew I needed to get on the roads sooner rather than later. I had no interest in fighting true holiday traffic, and knew that Thursday through the weekend would be a headache at best. I said my goodbyes and braced myself for a long night ahead.

To start: a brief 84 miles on I-85 North, taking the short leap across state lines into Virginia. It feels familiar in the southern half before the bare trees fade away into Capitol buildings and massive, interlacing highway systems. I subside on a backlog of podcasts until I grow bored — a harbinger of yawns and nods I hoped to keep at bay. I turned to my Spotify rotation, settling on Norman Fucking Rockwell!: an album by Lana Del Rey that had kept me company for the latter half of the year.

For context likely unnecessary for anyone reading, Rockwell! marked a turning point in Lana Del Rey’s career — the starlet whose debut album critics described as “[the] equivalent of a faked orgasm.” These same freelancers would go on to praise her as “the Benevolent Spirit Guide of Our Times.” While it is undeniable that Lana has had, well, a decade to hone her craft, these disconnects in critical narratives across time have sparked discussion of how we consume music and connect with our pop stars. Before this cultural shift, enjoying Lana’s discography and resonating with her art had become a bit of a joke. At one point, the notion was you had to resemble some teenage archetype of the Tumblr era to sing along to Video Games. However, Rockwell! was the perfect storm for critical praise and cultural adoration, with the most influential of voices embracing Lana as one of the greatest living songwriters.

As Virginia turned to Maryland, and Maryland faded into Delaware, Norman Fucking Rockwell! marched through its 67 minute length several times over. I sat in my own silence, as the instrumental breaks of Venice Bitch swelled through the speakers of my Honda Civic. I stared out of my windshield growing foggy, switching on the vents as the hum of tires dancing against I-395 sang along to “crimson and clover, honey // over and over, honey.” In the nine hours of solitude, fueled by a Tripleshot and the cheapest gas Google Maps could find me, I reflected on the decade and my life as of late. While the vision of Jack Antonoff’s soundscape on Rockwell! may have been the California sun, it felt all too familiar on the New Jersey turnpike at one in the morning. The momentum of the music synced in time to the racing thoughts in my head, like a screenplay between the lenses of my glasses and my eyes.

Crossing state lines felt like time travel, with my mind lost somewhere in the piano keys cycled through on the album’s title track. I could see myself pressing the keys in time with the record, having tried to learn it a few weeks earlier. I played trombone at the turn of the last decade — I had a lot of talent, in hindsight. It taught me to sing since my voice is in a similar register. But, I certainly could not play my horn today, and I sing worse now than I ever have. I keep telling myself I’ll learn piano, and I’ll hop on the hand-me-down keyboard that made the cut when packing for my move to New England. I say that I’ll learn how to play more chords on my guitar I bought in high school, or that I’ll finally build the finger dexterity to do a bar chord. None of it has come to fruition. It is one of my biggest regrets this far in life — but one that, in theory, I can remedy and reconcile in time.

The piano gives way to the lyrics: “goddamn, man child // you fucked me so good that I almost said ‘I love you.’” I’m back in the most complicated time of my life which is, and has always seemed to be, the present. I hate to acknowledge but am always reminded of pieces of my past that I have yet to square away — complicated people and the complex dynamics they share. Things that should be adrift at sea always seem to find their way back to land. I blame myself and give you more patience than you ever deserved, “‘cause you’re just a man // that’s just what you do.” I regret a lot of wasted time, and wonder how many more minutes I’ll throw away in the years to come. I fear that it will be most of them.

“You lose your way, just take my hand,” Lana belts outs into the recording studio’s makeshift marina. I look out into the expanse of lights stretching out on either side of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, reflecting off of the water like a modern day substitute for starlight. “You’re lost at sea, then I’ll command your boat to me again // Don’t look too far, right where you are, that’s where I am.” I feel so connected to the human experience and so disjoint from it all at once, like I’m the first person in history to put emotion into mental prose on the highway at night. My pragmatist sense kicks in and I feel dumb for thinking so melodramatically, like everything has to be ‘meta.’ It was a criticism someone I once dated had for me, and one I was never able to shake, even now. I struggle to find the balance in my approach to interpersonal relationships, and it makes me feel like a senseless, naive idiot. And in this, I note, ‘there I go again with the dramatics,’ as the cycle repeats itself in perpetuity.

In Venice Bitch, I’m as hypnotized by the instrumentals as I am the lyricism, as F major falls to F minor and digs its hooks deeper into me. “You’re beautiful, and I’m insane // we’re American made” feels all too poignant and personal. The lyrics break away to synths that duel in stereo within the speakers of my car, like your instincts pulling you in conflicting directions. This familiarity is comforting and uneasy all at once — the most sincere embrace from your worst enemy, which so often is ourselves. Unfortunately, there is no running away from that fact, “It turns out everywhere you go // you take yourself, that’s not a lie.”

I know running isn’t the answer, though it feels hard to come to terms with this as the mileage on my car ticks up. I know that we all circle back to the complacency that gives us comfort — the very thing we fled from: “Oh, be my once in a lifetime.” We give up a lot of ourselves in the search of others: “You know that I’d just die to make you proud.” We think that we’re the first person to know the struggle of soul-searching through right swipes and awful first dates, unique to us and us alone. I had someone’s friend’s dad die right as we got our beers. Deadass.

We think things will be different this time around: “Like if you hold me without hurting me // You’ll be the first who ever did.”

We never stop to think that, odds are, they won’t be. Or to consider that could be okay — and that people have dealt with that before only to come out unscathed. We never find the balance of acknowledging our regrets and not allowing them to overtake our volition. We know that we are not the center of the universe and yet things always seem to move relative to us. It spirals back. “I’m a fucking mess.”

And in the darkness of unkempt interstates, it all seems to stand still, despite the momentum: “We lost track of space // We lost track of time.” I forget about the burnout I have keeping up with Iowa primaries and articles of impeachment. I disconnect from the country in flames — politically, literally, and everywhere in between. I wonder, for a moment, how many other people feel the same way at that exact moment, ready to tap out of reality and call it a day: “If this is it, I’m signing off // Miss doing nothin’ the most of all.” The haunting American melancholy of it all comes flooding back, in a muted tone with pianos humming along: “Hawaii just missed that fireball // L.A. is in flames, it’s getting hot.” I recognize that having a minute to escape from it all in my head is a privilege — pragmatism keeping my eyes on the road and my head out of the clouds.

In the reflection of my own decade — I recognize that it is all too uniquely human. I know I’m driving on these same midnight roads as a family mourning the death of a parent. I know I don’t exist in a vacuum. I’m riding along with someone else listening to this album, having these very same thoughts, just struggling to keep our eyes on the road. I know this.

And in all that, I can’t help but resonate with: “If he’s a serial killer, then what’s the worst // That can happen to a girl who’s already hurt? // I’m already hurt.”

Why?

It’s melodramatic. It runs the risk of us thinking our lives are all too unique when they are anything but. It’s meta, poetic, and pretentious. It’s realistic and unrealistic. It’s any adjective you can think to write in a sentence like this and pretend that it means something that anyone will give a shit about. That. All of that is the soundtrack of my mind through the late night hours, after Christmas day, driving along the East Coast. There’s a lot that I cannot understand or put into words, and a lot I cannot term to terms with. But when I take a step back from the day to day and consider the poetic nature of our place in this Apocalyptic Americana, I think others might feel the same way. In that connection, or hope of a connection, is where art transcends its medium. It is where we can only begin to find peace with ourselves.

So thank you, Lana, for Norman Fucking Rockwell!, and for helping me to reconcile the better part of a decade.