I hit the parked car.
Mindless reversal.
Anxiety-charged driving.
Forced going.
The screech interrupts the internal rant and rockets my attention back to the present.
I get the message, but only after the third attempt, only after a physical slam that upsets my nervous system. It’s as if I needed an actual, tangible accident as permission to surrender and honor the pleadings of my intuition.
Don’t go.
This is after I hit my head…twice…on the same lazy and broken lantern that dangles from the tree shading my car. There’s a blast of profanity and sudden fear that I cracked my sunglasses instead of my forehead (because, priorities).
This is after my roommate, after hearing my stream of upsets shared between sips of green tea, rushes to defend me.
“Life’s too short. This is enough. Don’t let yourself go and get more beat up.”
This is after the near miss with another car en route to a coffee shop, because though Chance the Rapper sings counsel to “not let the feeling that I am alone deceive me,” I do feel alone in a seething anger and a helplessness on how to harness it into a change aligned with wellbeing.
I almost hit the car, and wonder whose fault it would have been, and this after I hit my head…twice…and right before I hit the parked car.
“Enough.”
I check the cars, and mine has the bruise, a scar to teach that preventable accidents occur when presence is absent, when intuition is neglected, when I fail to honor what I know is my truth.
“I’m not going,” I announce to my roommate and retreat to my room. I cancel all plans to relieve my nervous system. I let myself pause and feel the shake-up. I let the body rest. I let the body breathe. I flow awareness back into cells and toes.
I sink into spaciousness and listen and remember:
Mercury is in retrograde.
Eyes may roll at that phrase.
But whether or not you jive with the grand, cosmic theory that the play of the planets is responsible for mischief and mayhem in our earthy lives, here’s the universal invitation we are all offered during this particular time:
S L O W
D O W N.
Review. Revisit. Reset.
C H E C K IN.
Finish the project. Forgive to free, or free the feelings to flow forward.
And we can flow forward by being still.
And in the stillness, I befriend the anger that has been left too long in the shadows. A tolerance that compromised too harshly on my morals and that tolerance has grown stale and I am learning to choose myself over the perceived thoughts of others.
I’d rather like myself and choose my wellbeing than show up in a dread that tenses my body in toxicity.
But I had to slow down, I had to pause and courageously allow this truth to be seen.
And now that this truth has been seen, I assert my power as an adult, as a woman capable and resourceful, and a woman who will stand by and validate her own feelings and intuitive reads.
I claim my own agency to shift course, and there is a terror that sucks my breath back, and inflames me with doubt and then a homecoming to the breath, to an image of a woman I want to be and the woman I am becoming. Here I root and rise in my strength to be honest and brave with the world in that honesty.
Because I hit the car.
I hit my head…twice.
I almost hit another car.
I ramble and rage and cause damage all within the few short hours of a weekend afternoon.
Mercury retrograde.
I could shrug it off as an excuse for the slew of mishaps, or take the invitation to pause and be a witness to the mercurial tidings revealing a deeper truth.
I slow down. I witness the distress that stems from suppression and choose expression.
And because I do believe in Mercury Retrograde, I’ll be extra mindful of my communication, will double check my commitments, and complete the tasks that have already begun. I’ll soften instead of force. And I’ll practice taking the hint to stop when I get the first cue.