Red Lights Are A Mirror

It’s 7:42 AM on a Tuesday and I’m the third car back from the intersection on Mission Street. I’ve got nowhere to be except everywhere I don’t want to be. My coffee is going cold in the cupholder. The light is red. Of course it’s red.

I had a fight with my mom the night before. Something stupid — she asked why I never call, I said I did call, she said I called once in April and it’s July. We hung up. I stared at the ceiling. Then I drove here.

And now the light is holding me hostage.

That thing about red lights being a mirror? I didn’t believe it until last week. Like, who made that up — some self-help podcast host with a $4000 meditation cushion? But okay. Fine. They might be onto something.

Because here’s what happens when you stop moving forward, even for 30 seconds: your brain catches up with you. And mine was bringing receipts.

Why am I still mad about that thing Sarah said in March? Why did I eat cereal for dinner three nights in a row? Why did I tell my boss I was “fine” when I’m clearly not fine? Red lights don’t let you scroll past these.

I caught myself gripping the steering wheel at 7:43. Forty-five seconds at one red. I knew it was forty-five because I was counting, which is a thing I do now when I don’t want to feel things. Counting turns rage into math. Math is safe.

Then the light turned green and I floored it like I had somewhere to be.

But I didn’t.

Let me back up. Three years ago I was the most patient person. Like, embarrassingly patient. I’d let people cut me in line at Trader Joe’s and smile. I’d wait fifteen minutes for a table without flinching. I’d hold space for friends who needed to vent about their ex for the entire duration of a long drive.

What happened?

I don’t know. Work happened. Rent happened. The guy I dated for eight months ghosted me on my birthday happened. My sister had a baby and moved to Portland and now she has a whole new life and I’m still figuring out how to load the dishwasher properly. Life piled up. I stopped being patient because I stopped having margin.

And then every red light became a punishment.

I started timing them. There’s a stretch on Valencia where you get red, green, red, red, green, red — it’s brutal. I used to sit in those and just rage. Quietly. White-knuckled. Eyes forward. Jaw clenched.

But last Tuesday something shifted.

I was driving back from a doctor’s appointment. Nothing serious — just a routine check-up. The kind where they take your blood and tell you to drink less coffee. I was parked at a red on Cesar Chavez and I looked up at the rearview mirror and I saw my own face and I didn’t recognize it.

Not in a dramatic way. More like — who is that tired? Whose jaw is clenched that hard? Why does she look like she’s about to fight someone?

I almost laughed.

The light was red and I was the red.

Okay that’s weird. Let me explain.

The thing about a mirror is it doesn’t lie. It doesn’t flatter. It doesn’t add filters. You walk past it hungover and it shows you hungover. You walk past it angry and it shows you clenched. You walk past it grieving and it shows you puffy and wrecked.

Red lights do the same thing. They force a pause. And in that pause, whatever you’ve been avoiding gets to surface.

That day I sat at Cesar Chavez for almost two minutes. Some construction truck was blocking the box. I had nowhere to go. And in those two minutes, I cried. Not in a cinematic way. In a leaking way. In a “I didn’t realize I was holding this much” way.

I cried about my mom. I cried about Sarah. I cried about the fact that I told my boss I was fine when I’m actually asking a friend if she knows anyone who is hiring. I cried about Portland. I cried about cereal for dinner.

And the light turned green and I wiped my face and I went.

But something was different after. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not like I became a better person overnight. I still snap at cashiers. I still check my phone at red lights. I still say “I’m fine” when people ask how I’m doing.

But now I see it happening. I see myself gripping the wheel. I see myself doing the jaw thing. I see myself rage-counting.

And seeing it is half of it, right? Maybe.

Or maybe it’s just a different flavor of the same thing. I don’t know. I’m not going to pretend I figured something out. I didn’t.

There’s this thing I do where I argue with myself in the car. Like, out loud. I’ll say “you’re being dramatic” and then I’ll say “no, you’re underreacting” and then I’ll say “okay but what if you’re just tired.” The red lights are where the arguments get loudest.

There’s one on Cesar Chavez — the same one I cried at — that always feels longer than it is. I sit there and the voices go. I sit there and the phone stays in my pocket. I sit there and I think about calling my mom back and then I don’t and then it’s green.

That’s the thing about mirrors. You see yourself. That’s all they do. They don’t fix anything. They don’t teach anything. They just show you what’s there.

But sometimes just seeing is enough.

Sometimes it’s not.

Last week I sat at a red for ninety seconds on Mission and I tried to be present. Like, mindfulness-app present. I tried to name five things I could see. I tried to breathe into my belly. I tried to scan my body for tension.

I got to three things I could see and I noticed the woman in the car next to me was also crying. Just quietly. Behind her sunglasses.

I looked away. She looked away. We both went when it turned green.

I don’t know why that moment landed so hard. Maybe because it broke the spell. Maybe because I realized red lights aren’t even mine. They’re everyone’s. Every single person at every single intersection is sitting in some version of what I’m sitting in.

We don’t talk about it. We just go.

I tried to tell my friend about it the next day. She said “okay but you sound like you’re in a TED talk” and that was fair. I tried to scale it back. I said “yeah I cried at a red light, anyway how’s your mom.” She laughed. We moved on. But I kept thinking about that woman in the sunglasses.

I keep thinking about her.

Because we both knew. We both knew the other one was crying. And we both looked away. And we both went when it was time to go. And neither of us said a single word.

That’s what red lights do. They put two strangers next to each other in the worst possible moment and ask them to ignore it.

And we do. We ignore it perfectly. Every single day.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve made peace with red lights. Last week someone cut me off at a red on South Van Ness and I honked so hard my dog woke up in the back seat. (Don’t worry, she’s fine. Mildly annoyed.)

But I’m trying. I’m trying to let them be mirrors instead of enemies. I’m trying to not white-knuckle my way through every single one. I’m trying to recognize when the red I’m seeing outside is actually a red I’m feeling inside.

Some days I succeed. Some days I don’t.

The counterpoint is this — red lights are also just red lights. Sometimes I’m hungry. Sometimes I’m late. Sometimes I really do have somewhere to be and the light really is in my way and being zen about it is just avoidance dressed up as growth. I know that. You know that.

But every once in a while, you catch yourself.

That’s the whole thing. Every once in a while.

You catch yourself clenching. You catch yourself avoiding. You catch yourself being a little bit of a disaster in a parked car on a Tuesday morning with cold coffee and a dog who’s judging you.

And then you breathe.

And then the light turns green.

Today? Today I’m at a red on Folsom writing this in my head. The coffee is still cold. The light is still red. I’m a little tired. I’m a little sore. I’m a little bit of everything.

And I’m not going anywhere.