Twenty Years in Solitude

My mother had traveled these lonely streets for the last twenty years, picking up work, dropping off work, living life, paying her dues. It was a lonely road near the older part of town in the rundown neighborhoods where she had lived before I was born. I remember how much we would go down there when I was younger, always sitting in the car as she went about picking up the work and talking to the managers about the work. We made a fuss about it even though we didn't really mind. Eventually, it got to her and we would stay home as she went to pick up work. I was still a child back then. I finished up elementary school, all the while sitting home and watching tv or my childrens books. I went through middle school, struggled with the bullies and the teachers, but mostly myself. I went on through high school with even more trouble, and finally I went through college.

Now I've come back around to help her pick up some work in the little car she bought me. The road is exactly the same as when I last came there long ago. The church is still at the end of the street, the grocery store is still there. The company has changed owners once, but the interior of the building is still the same. I went to the supermarket on that side of town where it's more convenient for her to shop. The little aisles of candy and gum and sweet drinks is still there. The same vegetables that she bought twenty years back still stocked. She was not much older than I am now.

I felt the loneliness of the place. It was a place of solitude and the constant repetition which made up her life. She had done all of this for twenty years without anyone by her side. I realized that she has lived half of her life traveling back and forth on this road almost every day. She's been through all of this life by herself. I suppose it will still continue many years from now as my life goes on a different route.