2021: The Road Before Us

This morning, I woke up before anyone in my household, quietly slipped into my hospital scrubs, threw my hair up in a bun, slogged into my snow boots, and headed out into the cold dark morning.

I knew it would be an icy commute to work but as I opened the garage door, I stood stunned for a moment, taking in the beauty of it all. A blanket of snow covered everything in sight like a blank canvas, a fresh start, after what had been the most difficult year I can ever remember (both personally and worldwide). The sky and the ground were the same color, and the sun was hours away from showing its face. “Hello there 2021,” I whispered cautiously as I felt myself slowly exhaling a year’s worth of heaviness.

I breathed a prayer of thanks for a new year and for the deep knowing that I could face whatever lay in the 12 months ahead. I set out down my neighborhood street, my tires crunching through the thick barrier of perfectly fallen snow. If I could just get to the interstate, I hoped it would be smooth sailing, although slow going, on my drive into the city. 

But as I merged onto the dark, snow packed interstate, I realized my hopes had been wrong. Barely a single lane carved out on the 6 lane interstate, I trudged along at barely 30mph, with snow beginning to fall faster against my windshield. Thankfully there were few other passengers on the road this time of morning; it gave me equally a sense of peace and an awareness that I was very much alone. 

About 10 miles northbound into my painstakingly slow commute, the road was even less visible and the snow was falling steadily. Driving in the only visible lane on the right hand side, headlights appeared to the on-ramp to my right. A car was coming steadily to the same point and would soon intersect my path. Not wanting to hit my breaks, I carefully and gradually steered to the left, clearing more room for the merging vehicle. But it was too much. Almost immediately my back tires swung around to my left, and then to my right. Suddenly I was sliding sideways down the interstate and staring at the concrete barrier that had previously been to my left. Fear threatened to paralyze me, but somehow through my panic I could almost hear my dad’s voice as he had first cautioned me how to drive on ice, way back when I was a new driver:

“Steer into the spin (towards the back tires) and do not slam your brakes. Whatever you do, do not slam your brakes.” 

As his words echoed in my mind I followed his advice, and in a few split seconds that felt like a few long minutes I had corrected my SUV’s spin and was headed north once again. 

I wish I could say I then took a deep breath and kept driving slowly, being the level headed person I normally am.  But instead, fear took over as the road ahead of me became increasingly difficult to navigate. I screamed at Siri to call my husband and demanded to hear his voice, to just keep talking to me. I started panicking and ultimately hyperventilating. My lungs refusing to expand, my head throbbing, my heart racing, and my stomach threatening to expel its contents, I felt out of control more now than I had get while sliding sideways down the interstate. By the time I pulled into the parking lot at work, I was a mess of tears but could finally breathe deeply as J.J. continued to coach me through my panicked state.

Fear is a sneaky beast. It has a way of inducing not only mental and emotional panic but also an overwhelming overdrive of bodily functions. It can be absolutely paralyzing. My moment of panic continued to intensify even after the inciting event had ended, and I spent much more time overcoming the fear than overcoming the moment of true physical threat. 

After the tumultuous year of 2020, we have every reason to fear the loss of jobs, community, health, and even life...because so many have experienced these losses firsthand. When we started out on the road of 2020, we never anticipated that we would soon be careening out of control, reeling through a global pandemic, spinning face to face with racial injustice, all wrapped up in a dizzying election year. The year may be over, but the effects are lingering. The immediate dangers of last year will subside over time, Lord willing, but the trauma response from those dangers may tag along for years to come. 

Fear is a real and necessary emotion, sometimes a survival instinct.  But when fear begins to debilitate us and prevent us from moving forward, that lingering fear is allowed to have too much control in our lives. Sometimes, it feels like it would be easier to slam on the brakes, to throw our hands up, or to brace ourselves for an inevitable crash. But slamming on the brakes can sometimes make fear even worse, grinding our forward motion to a halt - but not before locking up and spinning out of control. 

Instead, when life feels out of control, I want to keep my hands on the wheel and allow fear to move me to action instead of hitting the brakes. I want to keep my eyes on the road ahead even after I’ve temporarily lost control, knowing that I have people who can speak truth into my life when I cannot rationalize what is happening around me.

As I drove home after work today, the sun had melted the snow on the interstate. In only a matter of hours, the same treacherous road from this morning was now splashing puddles against my tires, posing no threat at all. I passed the same place where my morning incident had occurred, but to be honest I couldn't even tell you exactly where it was. My landscape had changed, even though the road before me was the same. 

Hello there, 2021. We stand before a blank canvas, cautiously hopeful and yet shivering with memories of a brutal year behind. But we are here, nevertheless. We are firing up our engines, we are buckling up, and we are venturing out onto uncharted roads. We don’t have a promise of smooth journeys ahead, but when we hit that next patch of ice we will hold on. We will not hit our breaks. We will listen for the Father’s voice, and we will steer into the spin. 

Cheers to new adventures and courage along the journey...

-L