You never had a name, but you held pieces of my life like a time capsule strapped in with a faulty seatbelt.

You smelled like gas station slushies and the kind of freedom that only exists when you’re seventeen and think the world is stretching itself out just for you. Your black fabric interior was grayed with time, sticky with coffee spills and summer sweat of too many people crammed into a space meant for one. The same people who ripped you at the seams, the tearing of your undersides unheard through their mirthful laughter.

You groaned under the weight of my best friend, legs curled up as she ranted about boys who didn’t deserve her and dreams that felt just out of reach. You carried the ghosts of our giggles and screams, our half-sung lyrics shouted over static-filled speakers, our whispered confessions at 2 AM when the roads were empty and the only light came from flickering neon signs.

You were there the first time I drove without checking Google Maps, trusting muscle memory to take me where I needed to go. You watched me fumble for the right words when I sat in the driver’s seat next to him, my first almost-love, my first heartbreak before the heartbreak even happened. You were the only witness to the way I gripped the wheel too tight when he left, my knuckles white as if I could steer myself away from missing him.

You soaked in the silences, too. The nights I didn’t pick up the phone, the times I sat in the Macy’s parking lot alone, staring at the fog on the windshield like it held answers. The long drives to nowhere just to feel like I was moving, just to let the air rush in through the open windows and carry away whatever was pressing against my ribs.

And then, one day, I left you behind.

You stayed in a driveway that wasn’t mine anymore, watching someone else take the wheel, someone who didn’t know that your glove compartment held a crumpled movie ticket from the night I first realized I was happy, or that there was a tiny scar in the upholstery from where my friend stabbed a pen into the seat during an overdramatic retelling of a story. They wouldn’t know that I once sat in that seat, staring at my hands, trying to decide whether to take a leap or stay safe.

I wonder if you miss me. If you carry echoes of my youth in your worn-down cushions, if traces of my old dollar store perfume still linger in your faded fabric, if my laughter is still tucked into your seams. I wonder if you ever feel empty without us.

Because some days, when I pass a car that looks a little too much like you, I feel empty, too.

Dear Fear of Choosing the Wrong Line,

It happens again at the grocery store.

I’m clutching a carton of oat milk in one hand, a bag of frozen dumplings in the other, my grip tightening as I scan the checkout lanes. To my left, an elderly woman shuffles through her purse with trembling fingers, her face tightening in frustration as she fumbles for exact change. To my right, a father wrestles a squirming toddler, his voice strained but patient as she thrashes against his chest, a box of fruit snacks clutched defiantly in her tiny hands.

My breath catches. Which one? Which line will move faster? I start to step right but hesitate—just for a second, just long enough for someone else to slide into place ahead of me. Guess the choice is made. I stay left, watching as the other line glides forward, the father and child already arriving at the exit—I haven’t even gotten to set my items on the conveyor belt.

A familiar weight settles in my chest, the bitter taste of regret pooling at the back of my throat. Another wrong choice. Another small failure. Another reminder that hesitation costs me.

And maybe, in a different life, I’d shrug this off. Maybe I’d tell myself it’s just a few extra minutes, a trivial miscalculation. But it’s not just about the line, is it?

It never is. It’s about every decision that has ever pressed itself against my ribs, every moment where I wavered just long enough for life to choose for me.

I think of college—of the nights I sat in front of two screens, one filled with logic gates and algorithms, the other with half-finished stories that ached to be written. I had once dreamed of creating worlds, of spinning constellations from ink, of giving breath to characters who could carry humanity to the stars. But I went with the safer path, the one lined with job security and predictable outcomes. Computer science made sense. It was structured, logical, clear.

But at night, when the world is quiet and my laptop hums softly in the dark, I sometimes open a blank document and wonder—wonder if I had silenced something inside me that was never meant to be quiet. Wonder if I have spent years optimizing for safety at the expense of the parts of me that made life feel electric.

I think of love—the first one, the one I stayed with too long, trying to solder together something that had already melted through my fingers. I believed love was supposed to be work, that if I just held on tight enough, it wouldn’t slip away. And then the second—the one I let go too soon, mistaking fear for wisdom, mistaking silence for strength. Sometimes, in my dreams, I hear his voice like an echo in a hollow room, feel the phantom weight of his hand in mine. And I wonder: Had I been too careful? Too measured? Too unwilling to risk the messiness of the unknown?

And the dog.

The one I always meant to bring home. I pictured him curled at my feet, warm and steady, an anchor on the loneliest nights. I told myself I just needed a little more stability, a little more time. But time didn’t wait. And when I was finally ready, my body wasn’t. An allergy I never knew I had slammed the door shut, and I was left staring at a future that could never be. I think about that version of myself sometimes—the one who didn’t hesitate, who just reached out and chose life over practicality. And I wonder if she is happier.

Regret is a heavy thing to carry. But fear is heavier.

The cashier hands me my receipt, and I step out into the cold air, tucking my chin into my coat. Across the parking lot, the father is still there, kneeling beside the open car door, his daughter bundled in pink, her tiny hands gripping his sleeve. She’s no longer fighting him. She presses her face into his jacket, soothed not by explanations or reasoning, but by presence. By the simple, unshaken certainty that he is here, that he chose to be here.

And I wish that were enough for me.

I wish I could believe that it doesn’t matter what line I pick, that life is not a sequence of optimized moves, but rather a series of moments—some beautiful, some aching, all irretrievable. I wish I could embrace the waiting, trust the slowness, surrender to the unknown without needing to solve for the best outcome.

But I’m afraid. Afraid that the minutes do matter. Afraid that the wrong choices add up, that they calcify into a life that is less than it could have been. Afraid that there is a right path, just out of reach, and I will spend my life missing it by inches.

Afraid that I will wake up one day and realize I have built a life that is safe but small. Afraid that I will look back and see the moments where I should have leapt, should have loved, should have risked, should have chosen more.
The fear does not disappear. And maybe it never will.

But today, I step forward anyway. Still calculating, still unsure, still afraid. But moving.

And maybe, for now, that’s enough.
Yours still, but trying,
Me.

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