A subtle, but unavoidable, piece of life in southwest Virginia is the driving. It’s such an integral part of life partly because of the sheer amount of time it takes to go anywhere. Teens around the country rejoice on their sweet-sixteenths as they’re finally handed the coveted keys to freedom, but here, your sixteenth birthday is bittersweet. The freedom of driving comes with the heavy burden of having to drive everywhere. For me, a typical day includes about two hours of driving, and no matter the destination, there’s nothing quite like a trip through stop-and-go traffic to ruin your day.

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Wind in my hair and the Blue Ridge Parkway beneath my tires, I speed home from school. Driving is my world between worlds. Driving is when I do my best learning, whether from NPR’s Morning Edition, Freakonomics, or most often, myself. Ironically enough, it’s when I’m going the fastest that the world around me grows to its slowest. It’s when I’m driving that I get to take a step back from the bustle of the world around me. As a result, it’s when I’m driving that I gain the most insightful perspectives on life as a whole.

When I first moved, southwest Virginia seemed imprisoning, imposing, and hopeless. I lived in a house, but not a home. To be entirely honest, I’m not sure what changed, but– life in southwest Virginia has become my armor, my refuge, my muse.

In southwest Virginia, I am truly at home.