Why is it that some people have such trouble just … leaving?

I don’t know how this has happened. I’m 37 years old and I’m sitting in the car, which is still parked in the drive, rain pelting down around us, waiting. My four-year-old is strapped into his car seat behind me, staring out the window, frowning.

“Where’s Dad?” he asks.

“No idea.” I reply, repressing the urge to swear. 

I don’t know a lot of things. What could possibly be keeping him? Has he lost the keys? Is he lost? Has he forgotten the alarm code? Have aliens abducted him from the porch having waited all night for the opportune moment? How am I in this nightmare? Sitting in a car, waiting for a man to leave the fucking house. 

The one thing I do know is that the worst imaginable thing is happening. My child is experiencing precisely what I always wanted to protect him from: the abominable timesuck of house lingering.

There’s probably a better term for it but I can’t think of one because I’m training every ounce of myself on trying not to explode with indignation. HOW WHY WHAT ARE YOU DOING? CAN WE JUST GO NOW PLEASE FOR SHITTING SAKE. Not even my false departure time tactic has worked. I said we should leave by 8.30am when really 9am would have done it. It’s 9.05am. I thought I could stage manage my way out of this but I was so wrong. The will to fuck about has overridden my attempts to curb the twisted claw of history just wanting to repeat itself, over and over.

I turn the radio on and switch from National to Hauraki. It’s my dirty little secret. It’s Rocktober and even though I think the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are the most overrated band of all time, I love the laziness of the channel. It soothes me. Especially when Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin or Doesn’t Remind Me by Audioslave come on and inevitably they do. And I need soothing. So does my son. His band is called Death Pit so I know he’s got my musical genetics as well as my ability to just like, leave a fucking place.

Lord knows I understand what my son is going through. I’m sitting uncomfortably close to days gone by right now. Wedged in the car that somehow always smells a bit off, like long, hot trips along undulating roads. Certain we’re ready to leave but somehow just not going anywhere. Held hostage by one person’s insane need to pace about, checking things. 

When I was a kid it was four of us jammed into the car while my Dad stayed inside.

“What’s he doing?” I asked my mum.

“I don’t know. He’ll be here soon.” she’d say, putting our favourite tape on (Snoopy’s Christmas) to try and stem the creep of impatience. But I could not be so easily distracted. I could see how Dad was circling, frowning. He’d come out the front door and my heart would dare to lighten, hoping that this was it, only he’d turn back around and head up the stairs as though compelled by an invisible demon. As though some unfathomable puzzle had presented itself and he could not for the life of him depart without solving it. The ordeal had the whiff of Sisyphus to it. Only who was being tested? Me or him? 

And now my partner is doing the same thing and I feel defeated, cheated even. This lesson is not over. 

But it makes me think. Why is it that some people have such trouble just … leaving? And others don’t?

I am someone that packs the night before, runs through a list of crucials in my head, deals to them, and then has a good night’s sleep. Anything I’ve forgotten I can buy at our destination (toothbrush for me, chronic forgetter), and I’m a trusting sort who considers that break ins are rare and we have close neighbours who can keep an eye on things. Just lock the door and we’re done. Out. Moving on. 

I also like change. I love travel. The journey as much as the destination. I happily forget about home once we’re gone. I don’t even really imagine the house sitting there empty and vulnerable. Travel is one of the rare scenarios in which I feel I am in the moment. No laptops, no meetings, no pressing events.

To depart the house for a long, or even just a short, journey is to enjoy an extended stretch of time with the radio on and with nothing on the mind except to wonder where we might stop next. I like passing through towns, especially when they’re smaller than small. Like the places with one servo and one cafe, which takes the decision making out of it and makes it all even sweeter.

My partner on the other hand is attached to our house. Although a seasoned traveller I’d say he’s a homebody. He worries about things like whether the New World little gardens will survive a handful of days away without us there to water them. I don’t give a shit because we have like, ten of them, stacked up on the bench, unopened. It’s best not to get attached to snow peas.

Similarly, my dad was emotionally grafted to our house growing up. He liked things to be very clean and spent time re-doing the dishes after my siblings and I had ‘done them’. I never really found out just what the hell he was doing while we were sitting bored out of our brains in the car waiting to start a trip away, but I imagined that he was obsessively shaking at door handles to make sure they were locked, turning off power points, anticipating any potential catastrophes. Setting and resetting the alarm. 

“There he is!” my son shrieks.

Fucking finally, thank fucking god for that, I mutter silently to my 10-year-old self. 

He gets into the car, dripping with rain (why, why though? What could you have been doing outside?!). 

I don’t say anything. But I do turn up the radio and he lets me have that. Eye for an eye.