The Road Belongs to Me

I went on a long ride recently that ended up having a single purpose: closure.

When I left my house, I didn’t have a plan. I stopped for breakfast at the local café, something I had been doing frequently before my foot surgery but hadn’t done since. There was something comforting about walking back into a place that had been part of my routine before everything got interrupted. Before surgery. Before healing. Before all the small ways life made me pause.

I made a quiet decision over breakfast. I was getting back to my regular status as a patron.

After breakfast, I hopped on my bike with no agenda. I thought about going north, but I decided I had all summer for that. Besides, it is always colder up north, and I wanted warmth.

So I chose south. I mulled over a few options, letting the ride form itself in my mind, and then it came to me. The perfect route with perfect purpose.

This ride was going to be about closure.

Back when Andy and I were together, we had two spots we stopped at frequently. I hadn’t stopped at either one since our relationship ended. Then there was a route we rode often, with two places along the way that stayed tucked in the back of my mind. One was a scenic vista where we had stopped once, but he avoided it after that. The second was a place I had always wanted to stop, but never did because he was usually in the lead and already gone. Stopping would have caused conflict. I knew that as surely as I knew the sound of my own engine.

He would have wondered where I was. Then he would have worried I had crashed. Then his worry would have hardened into accusation, and once he traveled down one of those negative rabbit holes, there was no pulling him out until he decided he was ready. I could already hear the script: the gaslighting, the blame, the way somehow my wanting to stop and look at something beautiful would become proof that I never thought about him or how he would feel. So I never stopped.

I didn’t stop at the place I wanted to see. I didn’t ask again about the scenic vista. I learned to keep moving, even when something in me wanted to pause.

That is a hard thing to admit, because it sounds small from the outside. It was just a stop. Just a view. Just a few minutes on the side of the road. But sometimes the smallest things are where you notice how much of yourself you have been shrinking.

So my first stop was Willey Pond.

We had frequent picnics there because it was a halfway point between our homes. It is quiet and peaceful, with an amazing view of Mount Willard, a pond with ducks, and a bridge over the dam where the Saco River flows. It is the kind of place that invites you to breathe a little deeper without asking anything from you.

I took pictures. I wandered across the bridge. I listened to the water. I picked up a couple of stones. Then, in a way that was both simple and sacred, I reclaimed that spot as mine.

Not ours. Mine.

The next stop was at the southern end of Bear Notch Road, along the Swift River. This was often where we said goodbye before he went east to his house and I went west over the Kancamagus Highway to mine. I had stood there before with the strange ache that comes from leaving someone you are still trying to understand. That place had held a lot of almosts. Almost connection. Almost peace. Almost something that could have lasted if it hadn’t required me to keep folding myself into smaller and smaller shapes.

This time, I stood there alone, and it felt different. The river was still moving. The trees were still standing. The road was still waiting. And I was still here.

I took my time. I let the place be beautiful without dragging the past into every corner of it. I let it become a river again. A goodbye that no longer belonged to him.

Then I turned east, rode to the end of the Kanc in Conway, and got on Route 113, one of the best motorcycle routes in New Hampshire. In Chocorua, I took Page Hill Road to the scenic vista with the clear view of Mount Chocorua. This was the road he always avoided, claiming he preferred the curves of 113. Maybe that was true. Maybe he really did prefer that route.

But he also knew I preferred Page Hill because of the view. That was the part that stayed with me. It wasn’t only that we didn’t stop. It was that my wanting to stop never seemed to matter enough. My delight was inconvenient. My preferences were negotiable. My joy was something to be managed around his mood.

This time, I stopped.

I pulled over with no apology sitting on my tongue. I took in the view with no one impatiently waiting. No one sighing. No one making me feel like wonder had a time limit. I stood there looking at Mount Chocorua, and I let myself have the moment I had wanted all along. No rush. No pressure. No emotional weather system to monitor.

Just me, the mountain, and the strange relief of realizing I no longer had to ask permission to enjoy my own life.

I had one more stop on 113, the Chinook Kennels.

The historic marker here always grabbed my attention because my daughter in law flies as a crew chief on Army Chinooks. I knew the marker had nothing to do with helicopters, but the word connection couldn't be ignored. I finally stopped, not just at the historic marker, but at the road sign that marked my location.

After that, I continued my ride and decided to stop at one more special place. This wasn’t a place I shared with Andy. This was someplace I shared with Lance.

On Beltane, I had finally released the last remnants of that relationship to a ceremonial fire. I burned the pieces I had been holding onto, items I had collected on our adventures, little physical proof that we had once been something. It felt important to let them go with intention instead of keeping them tucked away like emotional clutter in a drawer I kept pretending not to open.

Beaver Pond in Kinsman Notch had been our spot.

I hadn’t stopped there for a year after we split. Then two years ago, I finally stopped again, but I stayed along the edges of the pond. Close enough to say I had returned, far enough away to avoid feeling too much. This time, I went farther.

I walked over to the stream and sat on one of the stones. I let the sound of the water settle around me. I let myself remember without sinking into it and let myself feel the difference between grief and attachment, memory and longing.

Then I reclaimed that place, too.

Mine. Not ours. Mine.

It was a long ride, 164 miles in total, but it wasn’t sad. That surprised me a little. I thought maybe retracing those places would hurt. I thought maybe I would feel haunted or hollowed out. Instead, every mile felt light. Every stop felt like I was gathering pieces of myself that had been left behind in places where I once tried so hard to be loved correctly.

I released the past that day, but I didn’t erase it. I don’t need to pretend those relationships didn’t matter or didn't mean something. I don’t need to hate the memories to heal from them. I can let them be part of my story without letting them own the landscape.

At each stop, I collected new mementos from nature and brought them home for my reclaimed mementos jar. Stones. Pine cones. Little markers. Tiny witnesses.

Proof that I went back and stood where I once felt small and did not shrink. Proof that the road still belongs to me.