Threading the Needle

This past week has been, well, let's say eventful. A few things that happened relate to me only tangentially, and I don't think it's appropriate to discuss them at length here, but suffice it to say, I've been doing a lot of thinking about life and my priorities and future as a result. Last night I was driving home from Minneapolis, trying to beat some snow that never came. On the final stretch, the highway is about level with the ground on either side of it, and in the winter snow blows onto the road when it's windy. I don't know exactly how to communicate the effect except to say it's like being inside the expression "the mists of time." For a while there, I had some Janelle Monae on and it was dusk and I had that familiar feeling of being a kid in the back seat of my parents' or friend's parents' car, driving home from wherever, listening to light rock, not having to talk to anyone, just getting to look out the window and daydream (does anyone else share that very specific memory?). It was comforting. As it got darker, though, I had some immediate problems to deal with. On that stretch of 94, there are no street lights, and with snow gusting out into the road and few other cars around, visibility decreased significantly. I gripped the steering wheel more tightly, slowed down, and just tried to make out the white lines right in front of me so that I didn't drive off the side of the road. Before too long I was in Moorhead and could pull off the highway, but I was on edge for the rest of the evening.

Life has felt a bit like that sometimes over the past seven months, and I guess it probably feels like that for a lot of people -- just trying to go the right way today, tomorrow, with anything farther ahead than that difficult to make out. It's not unhappiness, it's just uncertainty. I don't know what I'm going to be doing in the years ahead, and having options is both exciting and disconcerting. I'm optimistic, I believe that home is somewhere through whatever it is I'm in the middle of right now, but sometimes thinking about how to get there feels like threading a needle, wearing mittens. And this awkward fumbling for direction, keeping my head in the here and now, it terrifies me, but I'm keeping the faith.