The Proof I Kept Moving

I didn’t get to say goodbye to the first one. It was gone too fast. metal folding into a moment I never got to understand. But you… you stayed. June 16th, 2015: just ink on a title back then. Just a way forward. June 4th, 2026: and it’s eleven years of everywhere. You carried people who are gone now, and the ones who still remain. Long drives with nowhere to be. Nights I needed to disappear. You held my first love in the passenger seat. The kind that makes beginnings feel infinite. It ended like most things do. Quiet. Empty tank. You held silence, too. The kind that sits heavy when no one shows up and it’s just you and the road and whatever won’t leave your head. At my lowest, you started. At my highest, you opened up. Alabama:109 in a 70. We thought we could outrun everything. You wanted to run. I held the reins. Niota, Tennessee: the eclipse. Everything gone dark, then everything still here. You were there for it. And when you broke, because you did, I stayed. Hands dirty. Wallet lighter. Learning you piece by piece like you were something alive that refused to quit on me. 108,000 miles. That’s where someone else let go. You didn’t. You kept going with me anyway. Last night something shifted: a memory, a video, or time finally catching up. This morning, the bridge we always cross. Sunrise like permission. I think I’m ready to let you go. Not because you stopped mattering, but because you mattered enough to carry this far. Twenty years. You made it. So did I. You weren’t just what I drove. You were the proof I kept moving. And now I will... without you.