You Against You
There is something to be said about what it means to be behind the wheel of your own life. A lot of people grow up under the hands of their parents. They shape us. Our views, morals, ethics, our tastes. Tastes in food, in music, in people. But then we grow up. Some faster than others. We sit in the backseat, but then we have to learn how to drive. We put our lives on the line when we decide to get behind the wheel. There’s careless drivers, and cautious ones.
Then there’s the ones who never really get behind the wheel at all. They let their pain drive while they sit in the passenger seat. Their resentment. Their jealousy. They direct themselves down the same old road of those who wronged them, the road of hurt and trauma. They are comfortable in that seat. And it doesn’t reckon with anything. They let the car drive off the fuel of their grievances, and call it survival. But after a certain point, we all have to get behind the wheel. Whether we want to or not.
The thing is, our souls remember the road. Our flesh doesn’t care about the direction its going. For our flesh knows it’s not going on the road to hell. Our bodies don’t have to answer to the relationships we’ve wronged, or the goals we did not meet. It doesn’t answer to the people we’ve pushed away. It doesn’t answer to the years you’ve spent choking yourself with both hands, and calling it someone else’s fault. The body wants justification yes, but the soul is who cannot breathe.
I have watched people I love do this. They will sit in the middle of the road and squeeze. Not because they have to. But because the road of pain is more familiar than the road to something new. And there’s nothing you can do for people like that. You can love them from the shoulder of the road and still not reach them. The wheel is theirs.
They don’t tell you that when you’re learning to drive. That being behind the wheel means you can take yourself anywhere. Toward something. Away from it. They don’t tell you that the road of pain is not a straight or curvy line. It’s a roundabout with themselves blocking the exits. And some people let themselves drive in circles, just burning gas, blaming the road for not taking them somewhere else. The road of pain is inevitable.
The cautious drivers figure out their exit off the roundabout, to ultimately get to their destination. They take the smoothest route possible. They stop when supposed to, let others merge in front with grace, they are aware of their surroundings. The careless drivers cut everyone off and then wonder why the road is so lonely.
The cautious driver knows their destination matters and the road of pain is just a part of being behind the wheel of their life. The careless drivers find out later. Or they don’t. But I like to think that everyone eventually finds their exit.
