My boyfriend and I have a thing for getting in our car and driving around town. It was something that we picked up during quarantine and it has never stopped being our favorite thing to do. Whenever we are stressed or just want some time together, we get in the car and just drive. Day and night, it has become a calming routine in our relationship. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we just listen to music and often we explore St. Louis and find little gems along the way. Drives with him soothe my deepest anxieties and have been the location of many of our most pivotal moments as a couple.
I recently found a song called “Just Drive” by Erin Kinsey. This song explores every feeling that I have about driving with him. She talks about ditching a dinner date with her significant other and just speeding down the highway together. The center console is the only thing between you and your person. I have found myself obsessively blasting this song in my car. I have become totally entranced by a song that seems to highlight my every feeling.
It’s a song of passion that talks about the intimacy of being in each other’s space. I think about the distance you can feel from a person just by being in a large room or open space, yet a car seems private. No one but those in the car can hear what you are saying, making it feel like the safest place to share your darkest secrets.
It is also an anthem of joy. It highlights the thrill of blasting music in your car with your favorite person. The flutter of your heart when they hold your hand as they drive. The beat of the music in the small space which makes everything vibrate. The thrill of rolling the windows down as you cruise the wind in your hair.
Yet my favorite message about the song is the simplicity of intimacy. Driving around St. Louis became a pastime we took up when the world was locked down and there was nothing to do. We would drive around looking for parks to walk through, comparing houses and dreaming of the house we hoped for in the future. It then morphed into a place of sanctuary. “Just Drive” highlights how making intense plans or even a dinner reservation can take away from the small moments of intimacy that you and your partner may desperately need.
While many may think that intimacy is only physical, it is much more than that. It’s about seeing the other person’s soul. Intertwining your spirit with theirs. Allowing yourself to show them the good and bad. Falling in love with every part of their being. This looks like time spent together, hard conversations and sometimes long drives.
I would not take away the long drives we have grown to love so much. They have become one of the best things for us as a couple. They are where we laugh and cry together. They are where we share about our pasts and aspirations for the future. We have been together for almost three years; we have been through a lot together and I can say with confidence that our focus on maintaining intimacy between our souls has been the thing that makes us fall deeper in love with each other.
So if I have one piece of relationship advice, it would be to find an activity that allows you to just be with your person.
Find your car, and just drive.