Rejoicing in the Pollution

Today I was driving up 8th Street to Perkins to have coffee with my older sister. As I drove, I was listening to the song "High School Musical" from the third movie's soundtrack. You may scoff, but it's terribly catchy, and I do love to dance.

Anyhow, as I drove along in my rather decrepit old Saturn (badly in need of a wash), a long row of cars came up behind me, almost touching my little Saturn's sad bumper. On Saturday nights, it's considered cool for teenage boys to drive their 'hot rides' up and down 8th Street for everyone to see and admire them for having no other plans and wasting fuel resources. I, however, had an agenda, one which required dancing while driving and singing very, very loudly.

Once the string of 5 or 6 cool dudes in their cool cars started to pass me, I got embarrassed. Perhaps I should stop dancing and singing to the Zac Efron-led tune of moving on and individuality. But, as all 6 or 7 of our cars pulled up a stop light (me being the only "lame" car), I realized that I didn't have to tailor my way of life just because these awesome teenage guys would think I was weird.

And so, as we sat at the red light, I turned up the music and sang along, dancing with joy at my own joyfullness - and realized some of them were staring at me. But I felt alive, in my own corny way, and rejoiced all the more for it - even after the light turned green, and they sped away, leaving me in their wake and air pollution. Something had changed inside of me... I hadn't cared what they thought, which I would have before. I had found the courage to be myself, which is too often harder than it should be.

Zac Efron was still singing, as loud as he could in my ancient veihicle. And so was I.