“Don’t lose me,” she said.
I nodded and noted my disconnected manner. My “detached observer” shows up to alert me when I should pay close attention to what is going on, but I cleverly sidestepped the sensation and slid into my driver’s seat, starting the ignition.
“I have no idea where we are going so make sure I am following you,” she reiterated. “Don’t lose me.”
“No problem.”
As I drove out of the parking lot, verifying she was right behind me, I had the thought that she didn’t believe I was listening. I stared more in my rearview mirror than I looked at the road and about two seconds after we entered the freeway, a big rig diesel truck and three cars slid in between the two of us.
I weaved to the far right of my lane, my tires straddling the solid white line separating the road from the shoulder. I could not see her in my mirror. I bobbed to the far left of my lane, tires perched perfectly upon the dotted lines. In my mirror, I could see her vehicle weaving and bobbing and imagined her, too, craning her neck to glimpse my vehicle
The big rig immediately parted ways with us, veering right for the exit which would spin him around to eventually head west. Two of the interfering cars also exited with the big rig and I got the sensation that we were home free. I hadn’t lost her!
Then, I noticed she was still weaving and bobbing and realized she had not recognized my car. I slowed a tad and the car behind me crawled up my tailpipe, honked obnoxiously and, I am fairly certain, gestured with elegant finger signs. I sped up, my eyes fixed directly on my rearview mirror in the hopes that I could telepathically notify her that I was still leading the procession.
Two cars from the left lane jumped in between us and, once again, there were three cars between us. I was doing a really lousy job as the leader. I was certain I had lost her now and getting anxious. Hoping to glimpse her, I kept staring in the rearview mirror while sporadically glancing at the curving road so I wouldn’t careen over the edge and disappear into the ravine.
At one point, the freeway splits. One road heads east, up the mountain and the other veers to the south – the direction we needed to go. If you miss the southbound veer, you’re doomed to travel up Parley’s Canyon for about five miles until you find a “ranch exit” with a gravel road and an eerie underpass that is barely wide enough for one car to travel through – and that is only if you white-knuckle it all the way through the tunnel, do not sneeze and do not hiccup. Any sudden movement and you will lose your side mirrors and possibly your doors.
I know this because I missed the southbound veer.
When I “came to” and reentered my body, I could not figure out why I was in the mountains and, even now, still don’t remember exactly what happened at the point where I should have veered. I frantically looked in the rearview mirror. She was nowhere to be found. I had lost her! I had done the very thing I had promised her I wouldn’t do. Ugh!
Still disoriented, I realized that I had been so focused on not losing her that I had lost myself instead. And then her.
During my little detour, I began to review the events. I wondered briefly, whose responsibility is it when one is playing Follow the Leader? Is it the leader’s responsibility to make sure the follower is able to follow? Or is it the follower’s responsibility to make sure she is following?
More importantly, what did I just do?
I realized that I had taken on something without really paying attention. I hadn’t even given myself a moment to decide if I truly wanted the responsibility. I just said yes and took on the full responsibility for a situation in which I was unable to be fully responsible.
I had no control over any of the other vehicles on the road, how she drives, the conditions in her car or anything that happened along the way. The only thing I could be fully responsible for was myself and, apparently, even that was questionable.
This was an uncomfortably familiar situation. Realization dawned that I have chosen to frequently make unconscious agreements wherein I took on more than I was able to or even willing to do at times.
And then I laughed because the lesson couldn’t have gotten any more blatant than it had: Make an unconscious – and impossible – agreement of full responsibility, experience internal distress, leave my body and become inattentive. Combine that with paying more attention to what others are doing rather than focusing on my own actions, get lost and, inevitably, I will end up in a tunnel from hell.
© Angie K. Millgate 4/9/07
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