Dear Diary: The Road Teaches in Whispers

Notes from the Hollow Bone, entry eighteen.

I did not expect this trip to become a lesson.
It was just work, after all — a rescheduled trip, a road I hadn’t meant to take but did anyway. States blurred into one another — Missouri into Illinois, Illinois into Kentucky, and on into Tennessee. The roads stretched straight ahead, endless and quiet, the clouds above painted in strokes that only the sky knows how to make.

I should tell you the truth: I was afraid.
Driving long distances has always pressed against my nerves. Highways feel too open, bridges too high, new places too uncertain. Anxiety makes my palms sweat, my chest tighten, my thoughts race into every possible “what if.” Most times, I would rather stay home, safe in my own quiet.

But this time, I went anyway.

And something shifted.

Each day, I practiced presence like it was survival. I spoke out loud to myself, as if giving voice to the reminder would make it more real: Be here. Be now. Don’t rush ahead to tomorrow’s meeting, don’t count the days until home, don’t let fear swallow the view. Just breathe. Just drive. Just see.

There were moments that should have undone me. Bridges arching over wide rivers, for example. I could not tell you which ones — I was too busy holding the wheel steady, too busy feeling my fear rise. And yet, I did it. Not without shaking. Not without sweat. Not without fear whispering in my ear. But I did it.

And maybe that was the moment of clarity: freedom does not come when fear disappears. Freedom comes when fear rides beside you and you keep moving anyway.

I saw my people — my circle, my chosen family. I saw colleagues who remind me of the worth in what I do. Each encounter was a morsel of presence, something I could have missed if I had let my mind spin into the days ahead or the wish to be back home.

This was the first trip where I was not counting down the hours until retreat. Instead, I found myself awake to each day as it unfolded. It was different. It was necessary.

And in that difference, I felt alive.

The truth is, so much of my life has been shaped by avoidance. Hiding is easier. Fear feels safer than risk. But the road taught me something new: fear doesn’t vanish, and maybe it never will. Yet in the very act of stepping into it, of choosing not to retreat, a kind of quiet freedom begins to bloom.

This trip wasn’t about miles. It wasn’t about the states I crossed or the meetings I attended. It was about presence. About learning that what terrifies me can also free me. About discovering that I don’t need to control the road to move forward.

And maybe that’s what life is —
Not conquering fear,
not erasing it,
but breathing through it,
mile by mile,
day by day,
until freedom feels like a passenger too.

With Grace & Ink,
~Mai