Daily Journal #118 - The Absurdity of Mindless Choices

I sauntered to my car in the parking lot after having enjoyed time with Drew and Chardo and Jesse.  We watched movies, played cards, ate macaroni and cheese (out of the pot, if I recall correctly) and we laughed at all the asinine things seniors in college find funny.

I started my trusty Accord and zoomed down Bissonnet, an arterial road in Houston, toward my dorm at Rice.  The darkness of the after midnight evening made everything around me seem shrouded in varying shades of purple.  The quiet of the normally crowded streets relaxed me, and the signal lights positively blazed in their reds, and yellows, and greens.  The wind in my hair made me feel invincible - a feeling so closely married to youth, when we all believe nothing tainted will ever touch our innocent, fresh, unblemished skin.

I made it to my dorm room that night safe and sound but as I sit here writing I know that was a gift from above because I shouldn't have been driving after an evening spent drinking with my friends.

I'm not quite sure when I understood the gravity of that trip home.  But I did.  And because of that one night in college I stopped getting into cars if I had been drinking.  I stopped getting into cars with drivers who had been drinking.  And truth be told, I sorta just stopped drinking as I learned more and more about my genetic predisposition to addiction.  (I come from a long line of thirsty people.)   

But I know some of you, dear readers, do drink.  And I'm fairly confident some of you drive.  You do the math and understand why my spine shivers when I look at your larger than life hubris.

When I have trouble sleeping, I meditate in a way that would make my beloved Sarah Clark wince.  Instead of turning off my mind, I turn it on and imagine with every ounce of my imagination what I would do if....

If I had moved to New York...
If I had not had children...
If I had gone to Yale...
If I had millions of dollars...
If I had magical powers...

The last one gets me stuck.  If I had magical powers, I would hover over your shoulders when you're "relaxing" or "letting off steam", when you're "just having fun", when you're shoving your square shape into the round hole of an absurd social hierarchy...I would hover and insert into your mind's eye the mangled metal, the broken glass, the fractured faces.  I would hover and insert into your heart the reminder that you matter too much to the people who love you to get into that car.  I would hover and whisper into the deepest, darkest place in your heart, "Don't do it.  You're not as invincible as you think."