The Unknown

Chirping birds and the bright morning sun was what woke me up. My eyes burned for a moment as they adjusted to the light. A subtle breeze ruffled my curtains from the open window. It was a rare moment of peace in the city to start my morning. A peace that only lasted from the time I opened my eyes to when I looked at the clock.

"Late, late, late," was the only thing I could think to myself as I rushed around my apartment. I put on the first outfit I grabbed out of my closet. There wasn't time for makeup or doing my hair. Only enough time to get dressed and get to my car.

I arrived at work ten minutes past when I should have been there. I hoped no one would notice. The day was just getting started, but as soon as I sat down at my desk that hope vanished. A message came through on my computer. It was from my boss. I didn't want to open it although I knew I didn't have a choice.

Please see me in my office immediately.

Emails like that only meant bad news. At first I thought it was about being late. It would just be a warning to not let it happen again. That was something I could handle. It would be embarrassing, but manageable. However, the more I thought about it the more my heart sank. There had been rumors circling for a few weeks about jobs being phased out. It wasn't good to dwell on rumors so I didn't believe it was true until now. The only thing I could do was prepare for the worst as I made the walk to my boss's office.

The meeting was quick. Just long enough for them to say they were sorry for letting me go and they wished me well with my future endeavors. They tried to sound sincere even though I doubt they cared. It wasn't anything against me, they reassured, my whole department was being let go. I was just the first to be told.

The walk from my boss's office back to my desk felt like a walk of shame. I could feel the eyes on me as I started to gather my things. The whispers quickly followed as my co-workers speculated over what happened and what this could mean for them. As I made my way to the elevator I took one last look around. My eyes found my desk neighbor and judging by the look on her face she just received the same email I did. She noticed me watching. Her eyes found mine and we shared a brief moment of understanding before I left. She knew what was coming and there was nothing I could say to make it better.

That job had been my lifeline. It took so long to get hired somewhere and I was lucky that it was a place I enjoyed working at, but it only lasted a few months. Having it ripped away beyond my control felt like the final straw in a long list of bad events. I already lived in a city where I barely knew anyone. That kind of loneliness could be enough to suffocate someone but I continued to convince myself it was better this way. I would worry about making friends once I got settled.

That was over a year ago.

Now here I was. Sitting in my car, at a red light at the intersection, with a box of stuff from my desk in the passenger's seat. I looked out over my dashboard at the two roads ahead of me. Two roads diverged. It was like something out of a damn Robert Frost poem. A poem whose words and concepts I found so boring when I first encountered them in school, but now felt like they held a different meaning. A more symbolic meaning of this point in my life.

Going right would take me home, but what was home? It was safe and familiar. The daily routines that I had grown used to. All of my stuff was there, but all of it was just materialistic goods. Things that could be bought again from any department store.

Home was the guilt of past and present failures. All of the regrets that continued to haunt me day in and day out. It also served as a constant reminder that I had no one to come home to anymore. Home had become everything I craved and despised all wrapped up in a one bedroom apartment.

However, going left would lead to the unknown. A symbol of everything that could be. All the "what ifs" that plagued my mind at night. That promise and all that hope was so tempting, but the unknown was daunting.

If I changed course, went into that unknown, I could learn that I'm the problem. That it's something I can't just run away from. Maybe I'd learn that I'm not destined to be happy and that's why everything always seemed to go wrong. Some god put me on this planet to watch me suffer like a child tormenting an ant with a ray of sunlight and a magnifying glass.

"Was this really how things are meant to be?" I thought to myself.

The sound of a car horn caught my attention. The light had turned green and there was a line of traffic growing behind me. I was faced with a choice and despite all my doubts and pessimistic beliefs, I found myself turning left.

I didn't have a destination in mind and I didn't know how long I would be gone. It was something most people would find scary. The uncertainty, the unknown. I thought I would find it scary too, but in that moment it felt freeing. For once I was doing something impulsive. Something for myself with nothing to hold me back. Maybe I would turn around in a few miles and go home or maybe, just maybe, I let the unknown swallow me.