SHIFTING

Sometime around last week, something shifted.

I’m not exactly sure what changed, or why it took so frickin’ long, but somehow I finally, finally, finally got tired enough of literally watching the traffic on the other side of the freeway median, hoping to see and hoping not to see a certain car with a certain person in it. A car and a person that—honestly?—I just do not need taking up space around here anymore.

I cringe to admit this but the truth is that pretty much every moment on the highway—for months—has been spent either a) scanning every lane of every road, or b) occasionally lost in thought or conversation and too distracted to scan every lane of every road hoping to see and hoping not to see that car, that person.

It had become a habit.

And, before last week, I had not yet ever held my eyes straight. Forced them to stay right here with me. Strained to keep them in my lane.

Looking forward.

Ahead.

Onward.

And the moment I did…I felt the shift. Physically.

A thought blared: It’s time to watch your own journey unfold. Not someone else’s.

And so I fought. I pushed against every reflex that pulled my eyes back to their well-worn path and I started to let all those hundreds of other cars drive on by without me—especially the ones headed back toward the road I had already covered.

The first day I did this was both the hardest and the most satisfying. I literally felt a buzz in my brain as I held my eyes on the right side of the road.

The buzz felt like freedom.

This is my road.

My life.

I can take it wherever I choose.

I am going places. Moving forward.

It’s my road.

And it’s promising.

by julie rybarczyk