one-way turns

I’m kind of a bad driver. I’m impatient, easily distracted, and navigationally inept. Campus is an exercise in agony: slow down, speed up, watch for pedestrians, read the signs.

That last one tends to elude me. I’m just not looking around enough to notice the big red sign that says ONE WAY ONLY.

And that’s how I’ve ended up going down a one-way road in the wrong direction more than a few times. I’m just cruising along, trying to get to a cafe or the library or whatever, I turn onto a benign street, and suddenly I’m confronted with a line of headlights staring directly into my face. And in the metal hubcaps of the other cars, I can see the reflection of my life, death, and idiocy. I can see EMTs pulling my body out of a shriveled wreck and my parents getting a call to identify my scrunched-up corpse and my cacti wondering why I stopped played music for them. All because I couldn’t read the signs.

So far, I’ve been able to finagle my way out before death strikes. But it’s a constant worry: I’m always checking for the yellow line on the road indicative of a two-way, analyzing the movements of my fellow drivers, and, yes, reading the road signs. Still, I can’t shake the fear that one day, I’ll be mindlessly driving around, turn onto what I think is a normal two-way, and get squashed by an Goliath-sized semitruck before I can blink. It feels like a constantly impending doom. It feels like a never-ending anxiety-shaped barbell on my shoulders. It feels like applying to college.

College applications feel like a dark country road where the signs are obscured and it’s really not clear how fast you’re supposed to be going or which side of the road you’re on or if this is even a two-way at all. I’m trying to look around and see what everybody else is doing, but I can’t quite tell if we’re on the same road.

Every decision feels like a mistake. Everything I’m doing -- every test I don’t study for, every essay I blow off, every night I spend procrastinating -- is like turning down a one-way road. I just haven’t seen the headlights yet. Taking the SAT instead of the ACT? Turning onto a one-way road. Forgetting to study for the SAT? Continuing to careen down said road. Getting a bad score? Cutting the breaks.

Getting rejected? The crash.

Sometimes, it feels like I’ll wake up on Decision Day with my car careening on the wrong side of a highway, a cement wall separating me from salvation via U-turn.

But even when you know you’re on the right side, the panic still gets to you. You can look down and see the yellow line, see the progression of cars in front of you all going the same direction, and still wonder if you’re doing the right thing. Because that’s the fun thing about anxiety: no matter how much you try and throw logic at it, no matter how many mental powerpoints you walk through, it’ll still throw back the old okay but what if you’re wrong about everything and your life is over R.I.P. And, even worse, you'll continue to believe it, even if only momentarily.

This post got kind of away from me, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that the future is scary and uncertain, and choices are hard and making them is harder, but we’re all going to be okay. Because there’s always a way out- whether it’s turning into a parking lot, making a sketchy U-turn, or slamming ‘reverse’. You always have options. Just breathe.