It's a little after 5 p.m., maybe close to 6. The sky is soft and low, that pale gold you get before it gives up to night. I'm pulling out of Ottawa, pointing the car toward Toronto. The clock on the dashboard blinks like it knows something I don't. I just finished renewing my Nigerian passport. The building smell is still on me. Paper. Ink. People who have been waiting too long.
Out front, a girl is stranded on the curb. Her ride bailed. Phone at 2 percent. The look that says, I'm fine, but I'm not fine. We are going the same way. I tell her to give me a minute. I reshuffle a few things in my head, in my day, in my seat. She gets in. We both say thank you at the same time. It feels like a small blessing.
We roll out. The light is clean. The road is open. The playlist is doing its thing. There is that first moment when the tires hum steady, and it feels like the world has decided not to fight me today.
The Call
Then the call about the move hits.
I should have planned better. I knew about this job. I didn't lock in the crew until the last hour. Now the customer is angry about the timing, and I am seven hours from my main city trying to lead from the highway. I feel it in my chest first. That hot pinch that says, you did this to yourself. You know better. You've learned too much to still be here.
I pull into the next lane. I start dialing. One guy is at his cousin's. Another is free in thirty. The driver can make it if I send gas money now. I send it. I promise an updated ETA. I apologize to the client. I apologize again. I offer a small discount. I hang up and call back. I keep the tone calm while my hands sweat. The girl beside me taps the window with her finger to the beat of a love song. She asks if I'm okay. I say yes. She doesn't know there is a small office in my head where everything is on fire.
The pieces start to land. A crew forms out of thin air and loud favors. The truck turns on. The first box moves. Someone sends a photo. It is a coil of tape and a hand on a dresser. That hand calms me more than the photo. I smile at nothing. Relief floods in like the car just took a breath.
I think about systems. I think about building them so this call never happens again. A calendar that doesn't forget. A message that goes out the day before. A number that rings to the right person every time. I make a promise to myself that I have made before. This is the last time I juggle knives for sport.
The Drift
Another song comes on. The kind that makes everything feel cinematic. She and I start trading stories. How the last relationship ended. What we learned. What we wish we had known earlier. There is laughter. There is an honest quiet. Somewhere in there I drift. I look out at the line of trees and wonder what I am doing with my life.
My bank account does not match my brain. My experience does not match my position. I feel too smart to be this broke and too broke to feel this smart. Then a different thought slides in. None of this matters in the way I'm treating it. I am not dying. This panic has no blood in it. I let that sit. I let it cool me down.
Hope sneaks back in the open window. The projects I'm building start walking through my mind. I can see them finished. I can see the numbers. I say the wild number I always say, the one with nine zeros, and it doesn't feel crazy. It feels like a map I keep folded in my pocket. I catch myself. You say this all the time. You can't keep saying it and still moving like this. I nod to myself like I've just been told the truth by someone I respect.
Then the fear about permits shows up. That quiet paper fear that stays behind the loud things. I add it to the stack. I don't solve it. I keep driving.
The Present Moment
We pass an exit with a name I like. We pass another with a gas station that looks better than it is. My phone buzzes. The job is moving. The client has softened. The photo of the dresser has become the photo of a cleared hallway. I can breathe again.
She turns the music up. A love song, the type with simple words that land heavier than they should. She sings a little. I answer with a line or two. Our voices catch on the same word. I feel present. Then I slip away. She asks, again, if I'm good. I am. I am not. Both can be true.
We talk about the stupid little firsts you only notice when you like someone. The first time they say your name like they actually see you. The first time you leave a hoodie behind on purpose. The first time you stop checking your phone because they are right there. We laugh. The car feels bigger than it is.
Then my head flips back to the list. Money. Teams. Deadlines. The idea that could be everything if I stop dragging my feet. It happens fast. It always happens fast. Happy. Sad. Calm. Fear. Hope. Shame. Confidence. Repeat. It rolls through like weather. Sunshine that changes to rain without a cloud in the sky. I try to hold one feeling, and it slides out of my hands.
The Truth
Toronto creeps closer on the signs. The day folds into a darker blue. I turn the volume down to hear my thoughts and it doesn't help. She leans her head back. The road keeps coming.
Here is the truth I can live with. A person can carry all of it at once. Joy sitting next to doubt. Hunger sitting next to peace. The future shouting while the present whispers. Sometimes the point is not to fix the mix. Sometimes the point is to keep driving and let the feelings lap over each other like lanes on the highway. You choose the next exit. You keep your hands steady. You get where you said you'd go.
If someone asks how I felt on that drive, I could say one word and it would lie. The real answer is a handful of stations changing under one hand. Love song. Work call. Prayer. Plan. Silence. Laugh. Repeat. And somehow it all belongs.