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I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

I turned.

The car kept going straight, as if the steering wheel were a toy. We slid across an invisible glaze of ice, heading straight for the concrete barrier wall at the curve of the on-ramp, picking up speed. I braked and turned into the skid. The ABS brakes rattled; the car’s rear end swung wide, fishtailing. I steered gently the opposite direction then back the other way, just a touch, willing it to straighten its course. And it did. We got past the ice. Merged into thick traffic and went on, like nothing had happened.

Life is full of slippery spots, split seconds when things can either stay on course or spin out of control. Those scary times when a doctor tells you they don’t know what’s wrong, much less if they can fix it. Or that they do know what’s wrong, and can’t fix it. Or that it’s too late for fixing.

Terrifying times when you feel like you’re sailing towards a wall, too fast. With no way to stop. And yet, suddenly, you’re expected to merge back into the stream of life, ready or not.

That’s how I felt, years ago, when my father died. After the other-worldly bubble of the funeral, the world accelerated and I had to find a way to merge— to emerge back into normal life, when my whole world had just spun three-hundred and sixty degrees. At eighteen, I’d never experienced such a shock. I’d had more minor ones: two grandparents had passed on. My best friend had lost both parents already at that point, so I wasn’t a complete stranger to death itself. It was horrible, but at first, I was in shock, numb.

The merge is what caught me by surprise. The expectation to return to normal when normal as I knew it was gone. I remember thinking “How? How do people DO this?” And feeling inadequate that I didn’t know how, that I wasn’t okay.

In my family, as in a lot of families, the solution was to soldier on, bravely. Not to show weakness. Not to talk about it, because talking about it would just hurt, right? So I ignored the raw emotions that coursed through me, tried to pretend my deep grief didn’t exist. It was time to be done with that business, and so I was done. I drove full-speed into the fast lane, thinking I could outrun the pain. It didn’t work out so well.

Now I know better. You will hit some sort of black ice eventually. Yes. Go ahead. Merge! Life doesn’t stop moving. Be gentle. Let yourself recover in the old-lady slow lane, give yourself time. Merge with unwiped tears running down your blotchy cheeks, hands sweaty, face a snotty mess. Breathe deeply, until your heart rate steadies. Steer right into the pain. There’s no way around it in the end.

Life is one long messy first draft. The narrative arc is, if you are lucky, a long one.

It struck me today: this is why I like writing fiction. It allows me to polish dialogue, to give my characters just the right words and actions to drive the story to its conclusion. Yes, fictional characters make messes of their lives. Otherwise, they’d be pretty dull.

But their missteps are choreographed, like a ballet. Effective fictional characters— the likeable ones, anyway—are entertaining and engaging, making colossal mistakes, then finding their way to a better place. Good fiction often pivots on that magical quality of transformation. I think that’s what makes me want to run backward sometimes. If only I could edit out my circular meanderings. Things would happen faster, more dramatically. Like watching slow-motion videos of flowers unfurling. Look! The ugly bulb has pushed through the heavy earth and burst into bloom, right before our eyes.

In real life, flowers wilt. Flowers smell. Flowers die. Sometimes they fail to bloom, and sometimes they are crushed by a booted heel at their tenderest, and never quite recover. Real people, myself included, can be mean, can be clueless, can be lost, can be stupid—hence the urge to wish for a really, really big red pen.

I see now that I’ve been wishing I could workshop my life story. It’s a time-sucking trap. I mean, what IF I’d begun writing in earnest at thirty, or forty? How much better would I be by now? What if I’d known which things to worry about and which things to let run their course? (Oh so plain now, in hindsight!)

What if I’d learned sooner that so many of the obligations and material things I thought I were vital to a good life were actually entirely unimportant to happiness; in fact, wanting them drove me to work harder and lose sight of more vital concerns and joys.

As my dog-owning friends say when their dogs pick up something unhealthy: “leave it!”

This is the year for me to let go of that unhealthy yet seductive urge to hold onto the past, to let go of wishing I’d done this or that differently. It’s time to focus on the now, to save the red pen for work, and let life unfold moment by moment—messy as hell, sweet and imperfect.