When I write titles like this, I think, just how long can I drag a metaphor out...
We travel a lot, for all sorts of boring reasons. I cycle into work every morning, in a way that would make my cycling proficiency instructor slash my tires, just to sit in a chair and wheel around with the accuracy of a Jamiroquai choreographer for 8ish hours. All boring. Not the best start on selling this next 3 mins of your life.
I dont think I hit a more frustrating part of journey than a T-junction. Most of the time its not the fact that dont know which way to go, its more a case that the traffic is moving to fast for me to feel like hurling a 2 wheeled metal frame into the path of the oncoming bus. I feel like every time I come to these points in the journey, every traffic light, faded road marking or impatient driver behind me is a reason to turn around, sell my bike forget that I ever needed to get somewhere in the first place. To be fair there is only so much promise a crappy machine coffee and the odd paycheque can motivate.
The problem I have is that this drags into the journeys that are important. Why bother dealing with the agro that comes from your misplaced timing, your 10 minutes holding up the rest of the world or the fact that you wish you could be anywhere else in the world. Its times like this that mantras such as it is the journey not the destination fall under the wheels of people who have places to be.
As if two options aren't bad enough, there are the additional routes you can take that throw you off completely. This is where the joy of the roundabout comes in. There is a roundabout somewhere in the UK (I can't recall where and at this point I'm too lazy to research where it is) that is 5 mini roundabouts that surround one large roundabout. I assume it was some sort of strange satanic attempt to summon whichever creature is responsible for people who dont indicate. This is one of the best physical representations of my day to day decision process.
I know it's coming and my initial thought is to ignore this fact - I won't have to deal with it. Then, shock horror, it does actually come to the point where a desision has to be made and a true show and tell of mental discomfort unfolds before me. The only way I can overcome the "suprise" is to retaliate with one of my own. Throw the first roundabout off with some strategic kurb mounting and a well placed "oh fuck". Yeah, that showed them.
This is always a minor victory as all routes lead back to the center of the problem and I'm sure there was a police car giving me the eye 3 cars back. So instead I tend to continue my loop around and around, avoiding conflict and actual decision making until the pace slows down or I simply run out of steam. This is exhausting. This happens everyday. This is not about driving. My head is a constant magic roundabout (which is apparently in Swindon, googled it) which makes for an exciting yet anxiety riddled daily A to B.
There are however the few and far between golden ticket moments: the fork in the road. The best part about these are that they are unavoidable. They scream "MAKE A CHOICE!" as you hurtle toward them and it was either the right choice or the wrong one. Either way you don't care, you made a choice and you didnt die. Win.
The thing I forget every time is that once I've got to where I was going, which for me is anytime I'm not moving anywhere for 5 minutes, I've lost all memory of the stress of getting there. I don't care what everyone says, jouneys suck. Destinations are the fucking greatest.
No homework this week, get some rest, stop moving for once. Who are you trying to impress?
コメント