Missing the Exit

Yesterday evening, my flight arrived in North Carolina from Miami. My brother picked me up in his new Jeep Liberty from the airport in Raleigh, and we rode down I-95 South to my parents' house in Lumberton.

My brother got off the interstate at exit 25 and took a country road to get to mom and dad's house. For some reason, this reminded me of a time that I missed the interstate exit for home...

The first car that I ever drove, once I got my license, was a 1986 Chevy Cavalier.

I was 16, and I remember the feeling of exhilaration on my first drive alone. It was at night, to pick up my brother from a church youth group activity. Riding across the I-95 overpass at Exit 22 and changing lanes on that bridge was a particularly defining moment.

A few days later, I drove alone through Lumberton up I-95 again, headed home from some errands as the sun began to go down. My mind was on something else, and I missed exit 22, the exit for mom and dad's house. It was the first time I had made an error like that in my short driving experience.

It spooked me a little, because I was now driving in a sort of "No Man's Land." I thought the next exit was several miles up the road in the town of St. Pauls, and it was getting dark. I had never driven up this stretch of highway before, and so I kept cruising along, waiting and wondering when I could correct my course.

Fortunately, there was a place to get off the interstate at exit 25, a "Local Traffic" exit with nothing there except farm fields and a few houses. I used that exit to turn around and get back home.

In the years since that day, I've wandered quite some distance away from exit 22 and my parents' home.

In 2006, I decided to move from North Carolina to Las Vegas, Nevada. My Uncle Ken, my brother, and my dad all helped me with the trip across the country. I had no job lined up out there, and arranged to get an apartment in Vegas sight unseen.

Looking back now, it seems like an incredible thing to do. It is not something that I would attempt again. I remember dad trying to talk me out of moving, with me finally saying, "Dad, this is going to happen. It is a decision I have made."

"Dog gone you!" was his reply.

Mom did not go with us on the trip, but I remember her praying harder than I had ever heard her pray, in the kitchen of the house, right before we began the trek.

For my dad, it was his first time west of Tennessee, and I think he really enjoyed seeing the country. The landscape started to change significantly when we were in Arkansas. The flat, treeless land of west Texas, stretching as far as the eye could see, really blew his mind. He liked Oklahoma, too.

Once I was settled into my apartment in Las Vegas, my dad, brother and uncle were to fly back to North Carolina.

I hugged dad good bye at the airport drop off, and the same feeling that I had when I was 16 and missed the exit came back to me- only much more intense.

As I drove away from the airport in Vegas, it hit me with full force that I was completely on my own, now. I knew no one in the city. My nearest friend or family member was my cousin Donna, who lived in Knoxville, Tennessee.

I thought, if I get into a car accident and break my leg or something, there is going to be no one to help me. I'd better be careful... And I had to find a job.

Leaving the airport, I made a wrong turn and got on a road headed away from the city, out into the desert. Again, that was a spooky feeling.

Now, back in the present day, December 22, 2012, I find myself living in Miami, Florida. In some ways it is similar to my experience in Vegas, only this time I made sure that I had a good job lined up before making the move.

Tonight, though, I am glad to be back at my parents' house in North Carolina, celebrating Christmas with them.

Earlier today we had the Christmas family gathering for my dad's side of the family. My Uncle Ken was there, and he let me borrow a book that I did not know even existed. It is called Two Centuries at Sycamore Springs Plantation, by Joshua Stuart James.

The author, Judge James as he was known to my dad and my uncle, owned this plantation, about two miles away from my Grandma Marshburn's house in Maple Hill. The book is a well written history of the land and the James family, beginning just before the American Revolution. It is essentially a history of Maple Hill and the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. I am trying to read it all in the next two days.

I enjoyed seeing my extended family, today, and tonight listening to dad tell stories from his childhood in Maple Hill.

Nathan Marshburn