A Notable Absence

Well, I'll be damned—they changed it.

I expected this to suck.

It's rush hour, and I'm driving through Massachusetts on 128. I should've known better—left earlier, gone 91 to the pike, stayed on 495... something. This was avoidable. With a sigh, I check all three mirrors and confirm what I've already known for forty-five minutes: I'm boxed in on all sides, and it's not changing any time soon. Not to mention, all the exit numbers are different than how I remember them. They clearly did some huge highway construction project... Maybe this whole thing is finally I-95 all the way through, instead of the spliced-up cluster it used to be back then. Whatever.

Commuting through traffic like this used to be a fact of life for me. I traveled this road all the time when I was growing up. Like, every other weekend. For many of those years I'd been a passenger, yet somehow it was worse once I was old enough to drive myself. Something about having autonomy and still taking that exit never sat right. 

Anyway—

About 5 years ago, while stuck in a rush-hour situation much like this one, my chest had completely seized in the time it took to go from one exit to the next. That was the first time I'd been back in the area since... probably during college? I remember thinking I might crack a tooth with how hard I'd been clenching my jaw. Blech. Given that, I'm especially shocked by the notable absence of any fight-or-flight response while driving along the same stretch of highway now, inch by inch. I'm still checking my mirrors more often than I need to, but it's nice to see myself smiling.

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Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
321/365

When face-to-face with your own growth, do you give yourself props for the work it took to get there?

onward. 

For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.