and show me a sign

There is a tiny tickle at the bottom of my stomach every time I drive far enough up the highway to cross into the city J and I called home. 

It is a really unpleasant tickle. 

That's putting it softly. Too softly. 

In reality, every exit along the highway through that city makes me cringe. My stomach turns. The nausea is equally unpleasant, reminding me of how sick I was when we first broke up. 

Just when I thought I was doing well enough to leave the house with a smile every day, well enough to have civilized conversations with J, I start having emotional reactions to highway signs. 

The natural response to my new-found fear of highway signs is that the signs remind me of J, remind me of my 'old life'. That, however, is not very fun. In fact, that explanation is mundane and predictable. If I'm going to be sick at the sight of a highway sign, I'd prefer a more creative explanation. 

So from now on, when I drive through the city I used to call home and feel that horrible turn in my stomach, I will blame the nausea on the elevation, the increasingly clean air, the disgusting displays of wealth via unnecessarily large vehicles, the infuriating glare of the sun off the carpool lane signs, an inexplicable pang of hunger which I could blame on any number of fast food signs along the 4 exit stretch... 

Or just what it is. Stop avoiding it. 

The highway makes me sick because it has so few overpasses, obviously. A stretch of highway that long should have overpasses. The lack thereof is blatantly responsible for my sickness. 

Off to petition the city council for more overpasses... 

L