The Highway Exit of Life

This past Sunday, while traveling home from a work event in Miami, my Uber driver side-swiped another vehicle on a busy highway. Instead of exiting to a safe location, both cars stopped in the fast lane to wait for the police. 

Both the woman in the other SUV and I pleaded with the drivers to exit the highway to exchange information, emphatically expressing how unsafe it was to park there. I pulled out google translate to assist, yet, neither budged. 

I sat in the back of the vehicle and didn’t know which was worse — to stay in the car and get slammed into by another vehicle or to step out of the vehicle and have no barrier of protection at all. My heart pounded in my chest as I continuously looked over my shoulder, watching as cars stopped mere feet away from the vehicles. It felt like facing death. I thought, “Well, at least I’ll see it coming…”

After the cop finally arrived and told the drivers to follow him off of the highway (because, DUH!), the lady in the SUV and I shared another ride to the airport and discovered we were on the same flight to Austin. Besides grabbing breakfast and a Prosecco with her, (because YOLO…. at least this lifetime!) what did I do?

I sat in awe with a renewed zest for life. 

I communicated my feelings and thoughts to loved ones.

I reckoned that my mission on Earth must not be complete.

The following day, I walked and listened to affirmations. I danced my ass off. I wrote five pages of the script I’d been resisting and procrastinating. I jotted down the simple moments of my day that incited profound gratitude.

Tears well up in my eyes as I write and share to encourage you to take action now.

Someday does not exist. This moment exists. 

Speak your truth. Follow your heart. Explore your desires.

Start that business. Take yourself on that date. Write that book.

All we truly have is this present moment. 

And we never know the moment we are going to exit the highway of life.