Racing Down that Road

I used to think life was a freeway. A long, open expanse of asphalt to be hurtled over. No speed limit, like the autobahns in Germany where you can push your engine as hard as you want. A flat space to accelerate faster and faster over until the speedometer inches beyond the illuminated dashes.

I loved that feeling of going so fast it felt like you were flying when you crested a hill. A brief moment of suspension and weightlessness before your tires crashed back to earth, rubber burning. Urged on by a desperation to get where I was going as quickly as possible. No stops, holding my pee until my bladder felt near to bursting. 

In my mind, to go slow was to fall behind. No scenic overlooks, no snack breaks. Only full throttle, pedal to the metal, trunk packed to the bursting and rubber burning beneath my racing tires, the asphalt hot. 

When the check engine light came on, I ignored it.  When the oil burnt up, I refused to stop to replace it. I ignored the rattling and grinding sounds from under the hood and the cracks in the windshield and the passengers gently asking to slow down. 

To ease up was to lose control, was to admit defeat. Every curve in the road and narrow ledge, I took at a breakneck pace. Every traffic jam a nuisance. I would not stop until I was forced to stop, determined to reach the end goal as quickly as possible. 

And then, as so often happens, there came a BOOM. The corroded breaks gave out. The windshield shattered into a thousand tiny pieces that scattered across the road. The Engine overheated and caught fire. The wheels shredded on the shards of the windshield. I’d pushed and pushed and pushed until I crashed and burned and nothing was left of this vehicle but a burning hull. 

I was towed, ragged and rasping, to the metaphorical shop. I lay in bed for days in the dark. Every sound a serrated blade against my nerves, every ray of light like needles in my cornea. A thick pea soup fog descended over my brain, shrouding my thoughts. My whole being utterly spent, my joints clogged with inflammation. 

I barely had the energy to walk from the bed to the bathroom, let alone power myself down that freeway. Forced to pull off the road for a moment while I recovered from my implosion, I was faced with a choice: Continue to race at my top speed and drive myself sick with exhaust and exhaustion, or Slow. The. Fuck. Down. 

Alter my route to include those rest breaks and scenic overlooks. Pull off the freeway altogether and try the backroads where the speed limit was capped. Listen to the sounds of the engine and heed its warnings. Crawl along the one way streets of snowy suburbs and coastal byways. 

Ease up on the breaks. Get the oil changed regularly. No flying rocks cracking the windshield like shrapnel. Let the windows roll down so the air, fresh and clear and smelling of recently cut grass, could breeze through. 

You know what you miss when you’re racing to the end? The little diner with the best chocolate swimmers pie you’ve ever tasted. The sound of your love laughing from the passenger seat while she fiddles with the radio and that song she loved in middle school unexpectedly comes on the local station. Stretching your legs besides a small creek in a pocket of woods. 

Rest. Relief. Restoration. 

You will still get to your destination, no matter how slow you have to go. Maybe it will be in three hours or a day or a decade later than you wanted, then you thought you had to push for. But why were you rushing in the first place? Who told you life was a race to begin with? And who will suffer if you drop out or take a break? 

We can’t all be race cars, sleek and savvy. Jaguars and Porches and NASCAR racers. Some of us are ancient Honda Odysseys we inherited from our parents with busted power doors and a roof that shakes when you go above 70.

Some of us need gentle hands and light touches and long lunch breaks at roadside restaurants. Some of us have tiny bladders and need to stop every hour to pee. Some of us want to see the sights. We still get to where we’re going eventually, even if it’s hours after the fastest car. 

I am learning that sometimes the only way forward is to stop altogether. Sometimes you are forced to stop by a two and a half month long migraine. Hopefully, you choose to stop before your body demands you do. 

These days, I have chosen to get off the freeway. I am choosing to take the exit ramp, to have a long stay in a quiet town. To take the backroads when I am ready to get going again, to stick to speed limits, to listen to my vehicle. I have been to collapse, have witnessed the wheels spin off  their axis and felt the pain of impact throughout my whole being. I am not eager to return there. 

I want to reach my desired destinations in one piece and have the energy and capacity to enjoy it when I do.

So I will ease my way there, when I am ready, when I am able to get going once again. For now, though, I am parked in the garage.