Emotional Traffic Jams & the Gospel According to Red Lights

There’s a strange kind of therapy that happens in your car.

No copay. No couch. Just you, the wheel, and a playlist that’s always one Adele song away from unlocking your inner emotional floodgate.

You pull up to a red light. It’s an ordinary Tuesday. You’re in your third-favorite hoodie, sipping lukewarm coffee, thinking about nothing and everything all at once.

Then it hits.

Not another vehicle, not a bird doing 90 on your windshield—a memory.

A rogue, uninvited, high-definition memory crashes through your consciousness like it’s got a badge and a warrant. Suddenly, you’re not sitting in traffic. You’re in someone’s backyard in the summer of 2016, laughing over a game of Cards Against Humanity, mosquito-bitten and emotionally unbothered.

Back when your biggest stress was figuring out whose turn it was to buy ice.

Back when people actually called instead of just texting “here.”

Back when “pending status” meant your burrito order was on the way, not your entire career.

You blink. Still at the light.

Your eyes glaze over like your brain is buffering in 4K nostalgia.

Then comes the mental montage:

• The 3 a.m. road trip that made no sense but made perfect memories.

• The weird temp job that didn’t pay enough but gave you friendships that lasted longer than most of your relationships.

• The one manager who got you and told you that you mattered—before they left for a better gig and the company replaced them with a spreadsheet.

Your heart does that weird squeeze. You smile. You sigh.

You’re deep in Main Character Energy.

And then it happens.

HOOOOOONK.

Not a polite beep. No, this was the “you’ve personally offended my schedule” kind of honk.

Enter Frisky Karen.

She’s behind you, in a cherry-red crossover SUV with a bumper sticker that says “Faith. Family. Frappuccinos.”

Her acrylic nails tap impatiently on the wheel.

Her Yorkie in the passenger seat looks at you like you’re the reason she’s late for brunch.

You snap out of it.

Green light. You’re on. Go time.

But emotionally, you’re still in that backyard.

You give Karen the universal “Oops, my bad” wave and try to act like you weren’t just mentally starring in a one-man documentary called “The Last Time I Was Happy.”

She zooms past you, probably on her way to a yoga class she’ll complain about later, and you drive on, quieter now. More still.

Because here’s the thing:

Sometimes healing happens in the big moments—therapy, breakthroughs, job offers.

But sometimes?

It happens at red lights.

In those two-minute pauses you didn’t plan for.

When life gives you just enough stillness to remember who you were before it got so loud.

So if you find yourself stuck at the light a little too long, lost in thought, lost in memory, or just… lost—

Take the pause.

Let the traffic of your soul slow down for a second.

Because sometimes the detour is the destination.

And if Karen’s behind you honking?

Wave, smile, and drive on.

You’ve still got places to be, feelings to feel, and possibly some toll violations to settle.

You’re doing great, legend.

Keep going.