On a fast-moving freeway, you’re moving even faster in the left lane. Just a few car lengths ahead of you, a vehicle jolts and swerves suddenly into the middle lane. Before you have a moment to wonder why, you see exactly. Another car, barely moving, blindly drifts from the rest-stop gas station into the fast lane. You’re traveling 65, maybe 70. He’s traveling 25, maybe 30. There’s no time to brake. You jolt, swerve suddenly into the middle lane. You don’t have time to check if there is another car in the middle lane; you only have time to avoid the danger immediately in front of you.
It’s fifty-fifty. Your life could be over. Or it could continue moving along at 65, maybe 70. This day you were lucky. Or was it blessed? Or was it–no more no less–just the way it all was meant to be?
You’re walking down the sidewalk, two little boys with you. One is three, maybe four. The other is 18 months, maybe 24. The oldest takes off like a flash, full of the unrestrained glee that only children possess. He’s headed down the block as fast as his little legs can take him. You let him run at first—children need to explore, test their freedom. A few moments go by. You realize he’s getting closer and closer to the city’s busiest intersection, a ten lane highway known as the Boulevard of Death. His little legs aren’t pumping any slower; if anything, faster. You take off at a dead sprint, calling out his name, trying to keep the panic out of your voice. He stops suddenly, distracted by a dog on a leash nearby. Meanwhile, a city bus goes barreling through the intersection.
It was fifty-fifty. He could have ended up under the bus. This day, you were lucky. He was lucky. Or did he just have so much life left to live?
The first incident happened to me this weekend. The second I witnessed, although my imagination concocted the ending. Thankfully, the reality turned out to be far more harmless. But both events got me thinking about the nature of moments. So many weeks and months go by. We see people we haven’t seen in so long, they ask what’s new. We tell them not much. A cursory scroll through our brains reveals only a few changes worth noting. But millions of moments occurred in between. Millions of moments where life could have gone this way or that. Could have ended, could have been forever altered. We take these moments for granted because more often than not we’re granted the rosier side of fifty-fifty. That’s the way it should be. But those moments…
Tags: introspection
