The Roads We Are Called to Walk
The last trailer on the left.
When I stepped off the bus that day, no one was there. There was no white Lexus. There was no smoky grey Honda Accord kicking up dirt, racing down the lane. Royal Tartan Road was desolate.
The bus drove off, as if it had conspired and consulted with this moment. Silently, I pleaded for its return. I was a kindergartener, someone had to be there. I couldn’t walk down this road by myself. Where was she?
The thought of what I had to do was unbearable. I didn’t just scream, I howled. The voice I heard wasn’t me, it was someone new…someone I was only just meeting. MOM MOM MOM, WHERE ARE YOU? MOMMMMMMM. My attempts eventually failed me. Only the choice I feared most remained. I started down Royal Tartan Road to the last trailer on the left.
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When I pulled up to the park, I was out the car before my nine-year-old niece and six-year-old nephew. I skipped over to the swing. But before settling into mine, I did my due diligence as an Untie by giving them both a big push. Weeeeeeeeeeeee, my niece chuckled, kicking her feet for extra momentum. Choosing the swing between them, I eagerly raced to join. I closed me eyes and allowed the back and forth sway to take me far away.
I have noticed, over the last three months, as people have asked, how are you?, that I have fumbled. I have tripped over myself. Trying to be authentic, honest—while also being respectful of where I am, to the things I am still navigating, finding peace with. As I continued to swing, the chatter of my niece and nephew now background music to my thoughts, I finally realized why I had no words: I have been in a transition.
When I got off the bus that day in kindergarten, there was a massive challenge set before me. Of course, I was scared. Have you ever been to or lived in a trailer park? There are often dogs off their chain, running loose. Besides that, I’d never walked down that road by myself. I’d always been in a car, safe with adults, driving to our trailer, the last trailer on the left.
Despite my fears, I eventually surrendered. With my own two feet, I walked down a road I didn’t think I could.
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The unknown is scary, especially when we don’t have a previous point of reference. Such fears are primal, universal. We crave knowing exactly where (and how) life is leading us. I have cried more times this year than I did in 2020 (surprisingly and unexpectedly); less because of sadness, and more from a place of pity. I have found myself, many times, attempting to pray my way out of situations. I have attempted to stop the tower from burning, from crumbling down. The more I have prayed for a reprieve, the more undone my life has become.
When I finally stopped swinging, partly because I had become nauseous, I realized there was one prayer I hadn’t prayed: that my strength might be revelaed. That I might stumble upon the clarity, as I did that day at the end of Royal Tartan Road, to walk, again, faithfully down the road before me. Instead of fighting myself…my thoughts…my life, I realized another option: to simply surrender. I could let the buildings fall, I could let myself…life, become undone. I didn’t have to frantically run around, trying to keep everything up and together. There was a light and new strength I found inside me that day, when I finally reached the last trailer on the left. None of that would have been discovered, had that white Lexus or dusty Honda Accord been parked there—waiting to take me to a place that only I could. That bus…the universe—they had conspired against me that day, but it was ultimately for my good.
I was learning an important lesson, even before I knew I was: how to look and find what I needed within myself.
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We were all exhausted by the swings. They, believe it or not, more than me. With my nausea at bay, I turned to my niece and nephew, Do y’all want to play hide and seek!!? Yesssssssssss, they both screamed. Off we went, me skipping ahead.
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