Red alert

Getting over a breakup, I realized the other day, can be like driving past a parked police car with its flashers on.

Before you get to it, you see it coming, a public admission something's gone terribly wrong.

You brace yourself for the uncertainty of what you'll find as you close in.

You have to go past it. This is the road home.

Once you've passed it by, frenzied blue and red lights dance erratically in your rearview mirror. These are your panicky thoughts: “is this the right thing?” The relationship is behind you, but it still screams, “pay attention to me!”

The effect of the thoughts is like the effect of the lights: you freak out a little on that middle layer where long-term memories (“this is what police flashers mean”/“you’re walking away from a good thing… remember all the good times?”) and animal instincts (“red-blue-red-blue-red-blue-panic-time”/“hugs are warm and I’m cold right now”) meet together.

You invoke your wise mind, your long-term mind, the part of you that is able to remember that it’s really super okay right now and you just need to stay the course a minute and it’s all good and all is well. You don’t have to pull over. You don’t have to stop. You absolutely don't have to turn around. Your present-tense mind can’t remember this for ten straight seconds – the lights are too flashy; after all, they've been engineered to short-circuit you into action. You grip the steering wheel a bit harder and ignore everything your body thinks you know, the shrieked commands your shallowest self is issuing: “pulloverpulloverpulloverrightnow.”

Trust the road.

Your senses don't get final say in everything. If you can manage to just keep driving, no one will follow you.

You may feel threatened, but you are safe.