It’s a Tuesday night and my best friend doesn’t want to go home yet. So, I’m driving down Sunnyholt Road, away from Blacktown while she gleefully waves at strangers through the passenger-side window. I roll my own window down and turn the volume up as Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun comes on the radio. My friend turns to me, eyes bright – a smile lighting up her face as we belt the opening lines together.
I have a million memories just like this – all made on late night drives around the streets of the suburbs where I grew up. There’s just something about the wind whipping through my hair on a summer night that makes me feel free. And the quiet of suburbia at night that creates the perfect atmosphere for deep conversation. When the glow of a streetlight illuminates my friends’ face as we laugh and sing, I’m present in the moment in a way that I can’t replicate anywhere else.
My friends and I are in our early 20s. For almost two years now we’ve navigated big life changes - graduating university, moving out, starting full time work, falling in and out of love – while very rarely being in the same space together. And maybe that’s exactly why I get such a thrill out of a simple night-time car ride.
Maybe there’s a metaphor in it too. Sometimes our lives feel like they’re going nowhere. Some of my friends feel stuck in dead-end customer service jobs, others are bored by the monotony of university classes and all of us are limited by the rules and expectations of the homes we grew up in. But those late-night drives shake us out of our routines. We might be driving in circles but the feeling that we’re going somewhere is intoxicating. Even the very act of sitting in the driver’s seat and being able to call the shots gives us a power that we have in few other areas of our lives.
But those late-night drives shake us out of our routines. We might be driving in circles but the feeling that we’re going somewhere is intoxicating.
Growing up in Western Sydney, getting my drivers license was a right of passage that expanded my world. When I got my red Ps just after finishing high school, I was no longer limited to the options of Platform 1 (towards the city) or Platform 2 (towards Richmond). Suddenly I could text my friends saying, ‘Be there in 10’, pick them up and go anywhere. The car was a welcome escape from the lack of privacy in our homes; with parents, siblings, grandparents, nieces and nephews always within earshot. Having my license meant that my friends and I could catch a movie at Castle Towers, or we could drive to Wetherill Park for dinner. And if we just felt like talking, we could zoom up the Great Western Highway for as long as we wanted to.
During these late night drives, my car is a sacred space. On one drive, having circled our neighbourhood one too many times, my best friend realised that something was on my mind. “Are you okay?” she asked me.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I replied.
As I pulled up to the next red light, she turned to look at me. “Are you really okay?”
She’s known me for long enough to know that I wasn’t. And as the light turned green and I eased my foot onto the accelerator, I admitted to her that my mental health wasn’t great, and I didn’t know what to do about it. As we drove home, she helped me to find the courage to ask for help.
We can rant, and cry and rage – our hot tears spilling into the McDonalds frozen cokes that we picked up at the drive-through.
Those moments of vulnerability and connection in my car happen often. Because my friends and I know that we can share anything with each other, with no judgement. Staring at the empty roads lit by the headlights, we feel safe enough to confess secrets that feel too shameful for the daylight. We can rant, and cry and rage – our hot tears spilling into the McDonalds frozen cokes that we picked up at the drive-through. And then when we’re ready, we put Taylor Swift’s Getaway Car on the playlist and let that be our hymn as we drive home.
There is always a sense of magic, and possibility and hope that I get from driving at night.
Often, I think of the scene from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, where the characters drive through the tunnel to the soundtrack of David Bowie’s Heroes, emerging feeling ‘infinite’. I used to think it was a bit too cheesy to feel real. But there’s some truth to it. There is always a sense of magic, and possibility and hope that I get from driving at night.
I always come home from those late-night drives feeling re-energised. I am connected; both to my friends and to my place in the world. And as I drive home on empty roads governed only by the silent winking of traffic lights as they change from red to green, and back again – I feel at peace with myself.
Maybe the love that I have for late-night driving will fade as I grow up. I imagine that there’ll be a time when I’m less thrilled about being out past 10pm. Or when the idea of driving in the darkness will feel reckless and irresponsible. But for now, I’ll continue to embrace the lure of the late-night suburban drive.
And if my best friend texts me tonight asking, “Wanna go for a drive?” I know what my answer will be.
