Today is a bad light day.

I travel through 26 traffic lights on my 15-ish mile drive to and from my workplace every day. There’s typically one or two mornings every year or two when I hit green lights all the way, and those are the absolute best! I’m a time traveler of sorts on such mornings with an incredibly fast commute while maintaining posted speed limits.

Not the case this morning.

I actually left a few minutes earlier than usual and planned to use the added time to write. Excited about the sentences I would create on my computer screen, I backed out of my driveway after pressing the play button on my morning playlist, drove three houses up to the stop sign, and turned left.

And it began, the first red light glaring at me a few blocks up the road.

Then another. 

And so on. 

Five red lights in a row quickly added almost three minutes to my travel time, and I had just left my house six minutes prior.

I thought I had cleared the stop-and-go cycle when I miraculously drove through three green lights, but I was wrong. I was at the back of the green-light pack, and as my comrades in commuting sped up, I lingered to avoid the officer I knew was hiding in the trees alongside the highway, and much to my chagrin, the yellow-then-red lights mocked me yet again. 

Each light further irked me, especially those with no vehicles waiting for their turn. 

Phantoms. Frustrating as all hell.

The overwhelmingly unproportional number of red lights ridiculing me from above added a total of six minutes to my commute and robbed me of the extra writing time I thought I had so cleverly planned.

I realized, however, that while this morning might have been a bad light day, it is not a bad day. In fact, it is a good day. Taking some breathing exercises after I got settled helped to clear my mind, and I still had time to write, hence this post.

Life can be like that at times, constantly throwing up red lights and barriers in our path. Instead of letting them defeat us, we can learn to accept the adage that everything happens at the right time. Some of us may experience immediate success with our goals and dreams, while others may have to work a little harder and a lot longer to make our dreams and goals realities. 

While frustrating at the time, just now it hit me that perhaps those red lights might have prevented me from danger or harm. Maybe the extra time sitting in my car provided me with a springboard over the writer’s block obstacles that have recently plagued me so that the flow of words as I type this is smoother, more fluent, and more relevant.

The more I think about it, the color red is associated with the root chakra which provides grounding, stability, and safety. Words are rooted inside of me. I am open to all possibilities and trust the universe to support me, even if my journey is delayed by red lights and unavoidable obstacles.

I am grounded and have found peace.

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Thank you to those who have purchased and/or read Enduring the Waves ! If you haven’t, I guarantee you’ll make at least one connection to Kelly’s story. Click on the book cover above for ordering links and more, including a Reader’s Guide (kind of like a study guide for the book, should you be interested in a deeper relationship with it).

Please reach out to me via email (jillocone@gmail.com) if you are interested in having me speak or present at your next book club or community group meeting. I’m happy to meet you!

Thank you for joining me on my journey. I’m so glad you are here.

With light and love,

Jill

“The Red Light Conundrum” was posted on jillocone.com on March 12, 2024. Views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the writer, who was not endorsed or compensated in any manner by any entity; views do not represent any of my employers. Copyright 2024, Jill Ocone. All rights reserved. Contact Jill with reposting, licensing, and publishing inquiries using any of the links below.