You are drumming your fingers on the wheel again, watching the brake lights ahead pulse red, then die, then flare, then die. You are certain you are wasting your life in this exact spot on the highway. You will not remember, in a few years, where you were even trying to go.
But you will remember this song. The one on the radio right now, the one you keep meaning to change and never do. You have heard it a thousand times. You do not know yet that there will be a last time.
Look at your hands on the wheel. They are so steady. They do not hurt at all.
The car in front of you inches forward and you sigh like the world has ended. From here, that sigh is the funniest thing. You have a whole warm car to yourself, a door that shuts out the weather, an hour with no one asking anything of you. You called it stuck.
I would give a good deal to be stuck like that again, going nowhere, no faster than a walk, with the heater ticking and the light going gold over all those patient roofs.
Roll the window down a crack. Not for any reason. Just so you can smell the evening coming.
You will get there.
You always did.