By Emma Grenier
PROMPT — Who am I today?
Waving goodbye to my family, I feel okay. Tired, from our strenuous day at the water park, but luckily the drive will be mindless. I’ve driven down this road three times a year, every year: once in the summer, once in the fall to see the leaves, and once in the winter to ski. Right out of the condo complex, moving away from the Kangamangus highway, straight down Main Street through downtown Lincoln, until I can see the large sign reading I-93 South, where the journey really begins. I merge smoothly onto the highway and my mind is occupied. Usually when I make this commute it is accompanied by my mother, my sister, and countless hours of Cat Stevens and Elton John mixtapes, a gift from my childhood best friend to my mother. But today, I journey alone. I have to work tomorrow, so I leave the annual vacation early.
With no one's opinions to go off but my own, I zone out to the voices of Boygenius and Olivia Rodrigo. I must clock in at 7 am and it’s already late. The sun eagerly sits atop the mountains that surround me waiting for the moon to rise and take the night shift. The music is loud and the windows are down and I marvel at the familiar beauty of the White Mountains at sunset. Peaceful, tranquil. The sound of engines revving brings my attention to my rear-view mirror, where I’m met with the sight of fifteen military tanks approaching from my rear. I snap out of nature’s trance as one by one the armored tanks aggressively pass me on my left.
My mom answers on the fifth ring. “YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE IT!” I shout over the revving engines. “There are like 15 tanks driving down 93 right now. The boys would go crazy! I’m sending you a picture now.”
“Oh! That’s crazy!” She seems distracted.
I pause, waiting for something more. “Well… that was it really. What are you guys up to?” I can hear a petty fight brewing amongst my cousins through the line.
“Sorry Em, there's a lot going on right now. We’re about to head to the pool for a late night swim,”. I swallow. Logically, I knew they weren’t going to stop everything once I left, but I can’t help but feel left out.
“That’s fun! I’ll let you guys go. Make sure to show the boys the picture. Love you!” My phone clicks off and I watch the armored tanks accelerate off into the distance feeling older than I ever have before.
Being the oldest means you get a few more years of being a kid. Santa left presents under the tree years after my friend Olivia told me her presents from Santa were hidden in her mom’s closet as early as November 15th. The Easter Bunny dispersed eggs throughout my backyard even on my 18th Easter. We still did the same things on vacation up in Loon Mountain that we did when it was just me and a bunch of adults. Spelunking at the mountain summit, trips to Santa’s Village, indulgences at Chutters, the world's longest candy counter. But it also means you are the first to leave, the first who doesn’t fit quite right on the playground. The first to go to college. The first to get a job and have to leave the annual vacation early because of it.
Not to say I am jealous of my sister and cousins, who are starting middle school and dealing with all the bullies, emotions, and drama that comes with it. But missing a late night swim at the pool my grandfather taught me how to doggy paddle in almost makes me wish I was 13 again.
I made the choice to leave at 7 pm so I wouldn’t miss anything. Soon, I was going to miss so much, I couldn’t bring myself to miss any more. I got to accompany my seven year old cousin on the “big slides” at the waterpark. I was able to eat my grandmother’s homemade chicken picatta at the dining room table alongside the rest of my family. Before I left, everyone implied they didn’t know what they were going to do without me there to act as the mediator, to stop any possible fights between kids or adults. This made me convince myself that when I was gone, they would stop everything and simply do nothing, mourning the loss of the eldest grandchild for the final two days. I can’t help but feel a bit betrayed that their lives continue on as scheduled without me. If they can go swimming and take the gondola up to the summit without me there, then how much am I going to miss once I start school in a different city?
PLYMOUTH STATE UNIVERSITY: 1 MILE
My eyes move away from the road ahead glancing out my passenger side window to look at what almost was my new home. Back in May, I decided Boston would be my city for the next four years instead of Plymouth NH. Looking out over the Plymouth Panther’s stadium and thinking of the college students swimming carelessly in the Pemigewasset and making chai lattes in my beloved Lincoln’s coffee shops, I wonder if I made the right choice.
Cruising down the empty highway I once again evaluate the pros and cons of Emmanuel vs. Plymouth. Emmanuel has better options for my major, but Plymouth is familiar. It abuts the same river I’ve swam in since I was 3 and although it’s in the “middle of nowhere” my favorite hiking trails and ski mountains would leave me with plenty to do in every season. Emmanuel is in a city I’ve only ever visited, not someplace I would consider familiar. But, I’ve always loved how skyscrapers glimmer in the sky at night and how Bostonians have so many options just a train ride away. Although the skyscrapers are not quite the Big Dipper or Orion, it’s a new kind of pretty that I hope suits me well. It doesn’t really matter thinking like this, I already paid my tuition and selected my room and overall I’m excited to live somewhere new. Terribly scared, but excited.
I cruise past the advertisements for the Tanger Outlets in Tilton NH, a landmark that lets me know I am over halfway home. I briefly consider taking the familiar exit and stopping at my favorite used bookstore, but the sun set a while ago and I know I need to get home. Hearing we were stopping at the outlets used to be the worst news possible for nine-year-old me. I knew it meant getting dragged through Carters and the Gap where my job was to watch the three toddlers while my mom and aunts shopped for tiny pairs of jeans and graphic t-shirts. I finally acquired the taste for a shopping spree around age 12 when my mom first allowed me to start shopping in American Eagle like all the cool middle schoolers did.
The desire to shop rather than sitting in the car was my first introduction to being an adult. With a newfound appreciation for consumerism, the matriarchs of my family began to invite me on the exclusive girls' only shopping trips. Whereas I used to beg my mother to go home, or stop for lunch at the very least, I began to look forward to the car rides and fitting rooms where I could grow closer to these women. I began to listen to their stories and opinions rather than watching a movie on a phone, and every time I did, I felt more like them. Now as a core member of the group, I would consider myself a pro shopper. Speeding past the exit, I wonder if tomorrow they are going to stop and shop without me.
I continue down 93, passing through Concord and Manchester. I expertly maneuver my way through the various splits of the highway: 89 to Vermont, 101 East to the New Hampshire coast, but I remain on the familiar highway into southern New Hampshire. Now I am only 20 minutes away from my destination, the blue cape on Village Woods Rd where I’ve lived since I was six. Things have changed since then, I’ve gotten taller and I am a rower instead of a soccer player, I now love to shop. But things have continued to stay relatively the same. The friend’s I made in kindergarten still come over and hang in my backyard, but we sit on the patio and talk rather than run and play manhunt. I live in the same bedroom, but now it has band posters rather than pictures of fairies. I still go on vacations up to Lincoln, New Hampshire every summer and fall, but now I have to leave in order to clock in for another grueling 12 hours. Thinking like this calms me. Although I feel like nothing has changed, that nothing is different from when I was 12, things have, and they will continue to.
I don’t know what will happen when I start college in 2 weeks and right now I am terrified to leave my family. Terrified that they will continue on without me, terrified that I will miss important moments with them, terrified of not knowing what is going to happen. I calm down by reminding myself that I will come home and it will be normal, different, but still the same. I switch my music to Cat Stevens and Elton John for old times sake and sing along for the last few minutes of my journey, just how I would if I was accompanied by my mother and sister.
As a rising senior attending college in Boston, Massachusetts, writing has quickly become Emma Grenier's outlet for everything sucky that goes down. She loves reading just as much as she loves writing. Emma aims to highlight the complexities of every average experience through her writing.
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