Red Lights Are A Mirror
I pulled out of the parking lot of that grocery store on West 8th, the one with the broken AC that always smells like old milk. I had two bags in the passenger seat — dish soap, frozen dumplings, one of those single-serve tiramisu that I didn’t need but grabbed because my hands were cold and I wanted something. Something. I don’t know.
The light was red. Of course it was red.
I think the first time I really noticed red lights was after my breakup. Like, actually noticed them. Not the “oh there’s a light” noticed, but the kind where you realize you’ve been staring at the same glowing red circle for 47 seconds and you haven’t moved and there’s a line of cars behind you and you don’t care. That kind.
My mom used to say I drive like I’m the only person on the road. I used to argue. Now I just say “okay ma” and hang up. I don’t have the energy to explain that driving is the only time nobody texts me, nobody needs me, nobody wants me to “hop on a quick call.” The red light is the only stop. The only pause. And I needed it.
Stop.
I didn’t delete his number. I know I should. I know everyone says “you’ll feel better when you do.” But deleting it feels like admitting I cared more than I want to admit I cared. And right now at this red light, with the sun hitting the windshield in that sharp early-morning way that makes everything look too clean, I don’t want to admit anything.
My phone buzzed in the cupholder. Not him. Uber Eats. “Your order has been delivered.” I didn’t order anything. I almost laughed. Almost.
The thing about red lights is they don’t care if you’re late. They don’t care if you’re crying. They don’t care if your life is falling apart in slow motion behind the steering wheel. They just sit there. Red. Red. Red. And you sit there with them.
I started timing them. Stupid, I know. But I was curious. The shortest red light I’ve hit this month was 23 seconds at the intersection near the laundromat. The longest was 2 minutes 11 seconds at the one by the church on Sunday mornings. Two minutes and eleven seconds of just sitting. Two minutes and eleven seconds of my brain replaying every dumb thing I’ve said since 2019.
Is that normal? Do other people sit at red lights and hate themselves? Or am I just a special kind of mess?
I asked my therapist once. She said “red lights are actually a gift, they’re enforced stillness.” I wanted to throw a pillow at her. A gifted red light? Girl, I have a gift — I can ruin my own mood in under 30 seconds without anyone’s help. The red light is just a stage.
But here’s the thing I won’t tell her. She’s not wrong. Not totally. Last Thursday I was sitting at the red on 6th and Park, and I had just gotten off a call with my sister where she basically told me I was “drifting.” Not the words she used exactly. She said “you just seem like you’re not really here anymore.” And I was about to spiral, like really spiral, the kind where you grip the steering wheel so hard your knuckles go white and you forget to breathe. And then the light turned green. And I just drove. I didn’t spiral. I turned left on Maple and went home and made ramen and didn’t cry.
Was that the red light? Or was that me? I genuinely don’t know.
I have this theory. Bad theory, probably. But it’s mine. Red lights are mirrors because they hold you still long enough to actually see your face. Not the “checking your reflection in the rearview” face. The real one. The one underneath.
Like last Friday. I was on the way to my friend’s birthday dinner. The one I RSVP’d yes to three weeks ago. I was sitting in the left turn lane, light red, and I realized I didn’t want to go. Not because I don’t like her. I love her. But going meant small talk. Going meant “so how are you” and then I’d have to perform “fine.” And I was tired. So tired of performing fine.
I almost turned right. I almost went home. I almost texted her “sorry something came up” which I never do, but I almost did. The light stayed red. I sat there. And I went. I went because I figured I could be tired there too. Tired with champagne is still tired but at least there’s champagne.
I made it 40 minutes into the party before I went to the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet for 11 minutes. I know because I had my phone. I scrolled TikTok. I watched a girl show how she organizes her fridge. I came back out. I smiled. I hugged her goodbye and meant it.
But the red light was the moment. The red light was where I almost didn’t become the person I was in that room.
I’m writing this in my car right now. Parking lot. Engine off. Light’s red somewhere in the distance — the one at the exit that I have to wait for before I can leave. I keep looking at it.
I think the reason red lights bother people — the real reason, not the “I’m late” reason — is that they break momentum. And most of us are running on momentum. Just barely. Red lights are the moment the treadmill stops and you realize you’ve been walking at 5.0 for an hour and you don’t actually know where you were going.
My ex used to say I overthink at stoplights. I told him everyone overthinks at stoplights. They’re literally called stoplights. That’s the whole point. Stop. Light. How is that not an invitation to look at your entire life?
He didn’t laugh. He said I was being dramatic. We broke up four months later. I wonder if he still overthinks at stoplights. I wonder if he still drives past the gas station on Linden where we used to argue about directions. I wonder if he pulls into the parking lot and just sits there, like I’m doing now, writing words he’ll never read to no one.
Last week I went to the DMV. I sat in the waiting area for two hours. No phone signal. No book. Just fluorescent lights and a TV playing CNN with the sound off. I hate the DMV. Everyone hates the DMV. But I looked around and realized — that’s just a slow red light. A really long one. Two hours of forced stillness in a room full of people who also didn’t want to be there.
I watched a guy in a Patriots hoodie filling out a form. He was mouthing the words to whatever he was writing. His tongue was sticking out a little. I almost smiled. I didn’t. But I almost did. And I realized the DMV wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was the red light I drove through on the way home without thinking. The one I didn’t sit in. The one I rushed through because I was “in a hurry.” That one I’ll never get back.
I guess what I’m trying to say is — no. I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I keep starting sentences and not finishing them. That’s another thing red lights do. They either make you finish your thoughts or you watch them dissolve. There is no in-between.
A friend of mine told me she started running red lights on purpose. Not fast, not reckless. She just rolls through them. She said she was tired of waiting. Tired of being stopped. Tired of the pause. I told her that’s how people die. She said “better dead than stuck.” I laughed. She didn’t laugh. She’s not talking to me right now.
I think about her sometimes. About the red lights she doesn’t stop at. About the mirrors she’s not looking into. I want to text her but I don’t know what to say. “Hey, stop running red lights because you’ll eventually see yourself”? That’s not a text. That’s a greeting card. People don’t talk like that. I don’t talk like that.
I think the truth is red lights are mirrors because they show you what you’ve been running from. And most of us — me, her, my ex, the lady at the gas station who yells at the pump — most of us are running. From something. Toward something. Past something. And the red light says no. Not now. Not yet. Sit. Look. Deal with it.
I dealt with it last night. The red light at the corner of 9th and Main, the one that takes forever. I dealt with it. I cried. Like real crying. The kind where your face gets puffy and you look like a swollen tomato in the rearview mirror. Salt all over my lips. I cried about my dad who passed in 2022. I cried about the job I quit in March. I cried about the friend who moved to Austin and now only texts me in groups. I cried about the apartment I’m still paying rent on even though I haven’t been there in three weeks. I cried because the light was red and I was stuck and I couldn’t run.
When the light turned green, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my hoodie. I drove home. I made pasta. I ate it on the couch. I watched a show I didn’t really watch. I went to bed. I didn’t feel better. But I felt like I had been somewhere.
I don’t think red lights are magical. I don’t think they’re gifts. I don’t think they’re little cosmic timeouts the universe is giving you to “check in with yourself.” I think they’re just lights. They turn red. They turn green. They do this forever. They don’t care about your breakup or your dead dad or your friend who moved or your therapist who smiles too much.
But what they do is stop you. And stopping is the hardest thing for people like me. People who move. People who run. People who fill every silence with a podcast or a phone call or a playlist because silence is unbearable. Red lights don’t fill silence. They just hand it to you. And you either hold it or you crack.
I crack every time. I crack and I sit in the pieces and I look at them and I think: those are mine. Those are my pieces. Not his. Not hers. Not my mom’s. Mine. Sitting in my car at a red light at 8:04 on a Wednesday, smelling like dish soap and cold AC, with frozen dumplings melting in the passenger seat.
I crack. And then the light turns green. And I go.
I go.
I don’t know where. But I go.
And maybe that’s the whole point. Not the destination. Not the realization. Not the breakthrough. Just — go. After the red. Just go.
The guy behind me is honking again. The light’s green. I didn’t even notice. I was writing. I was sitting in this parking lot writing about red lights and I didn’t notice the light changed. I was somewhere else. I was in the mirror. And now I’m blinking. And now I’m driving. And now I’m pulling out onto the street and the next light is green and the next one is green and the next one is green.
I bet there’s a red one coming.
There always is.
[“Stoplight Reflections”, “Personal Essay”, “Emotional Vent”, “Late Night Drive”, “Gen-Z Diary”