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…

We all know that death and taxes are the two certainties in life. But I’m convinced there’s a third certainty – that there will always be people who come and go in your life, like guests at a hotel, checking in and staying for awhile before eventually checking out. Sure, there are those who stain the hotel sheets with the kind of blight that cannot be removed by even the most powerful of commercial washers and harshest of bleach. But there are also those who leave a special aura behind, so that the room carries their essence long after their scent has left the pillow.

E was the only person, besides my family members, who knew me when I still pooped my own pants. We were friends before we could even say the word, let alone understand what it meant. Our moms had brought us to one of those ‘mommy and me’ clubs, and for eleven years after that we were inseparable. In truth, E and I couldn’t have been more different. But that was the beauty of it. While I was more than happy to run around playing fumble rumble with my brother and his friends,  E wanted to try on makeup and curl each others’ hair. She made me practice dance routines in her front yard, introduced me to scrunchies, Sam & Libby flats, and perms. E taught me how to be a girl.

S wanted me to be his girlfriend. How did I know?  He wrote me a note that said, “Will you be my girlfriend?” and gave me two boxes to choose from: “yes” or “no.”  I was shy, and scared.  It was fifth grade, and I’d never had a BOYFRIEND before!  And I was moving across the country in two weeks.  E encouraged me to say yes.  After all, I was running out of time!  I chickened out.  I didn’t respond to S. I moved away without saying another word to him.  And no one asked to be my boyfriend for the next five years.  S taught me, in hindsight, to take advantages of opportunities when they come along because too often they are few and far between.

The second S in my life was that delightful person you meet who makes you realize that there are other people in the world who ‘get’ you.  Like me, S loved words, delighted in the pleasure of a clever turn of phrase, snickered at nerdy jokes, and spent far too much time analyzing and agonizing over the inconsequentials of life. At the most difficult time in life to do so – high school – S taught me that it was ok to be myself.

B showed up after some of the other significant guests of my life had checked out, long after their lessons had sunk in. By the time I met B, I knew enough to take advantage of an opportunity when it presented itself, and I was (mostly) comfortable enough with my quirks to be unapologetically myself. But I still had trouble letting myself enjoy moments for what they were without worrying about long term ramifications and implications and all the ‘ications’ that can clog up an overactive mind. One afternoon B advised me to  ‘be more epicurean’. I didn’t know the meaning of the word and asked for an explanation, which I answered with a raised, skeptical eyebrow. I read his advice as an intellectually-veiled ploy to get me into bed.  While that may have been true, B taught me that it’s okay to simply enjoy yourself sometimes, to immerse yourself in a moment and only that moment.

There have been so many other guests in the hotel of my life, a sort of supporting cast of transients who have impacted, shaped and molded me in a thousand little ways. The live-in residents will always be with me, will always have a key and will always know their impact. But I’m grateful that there’s room at the inn for both.