wheels on the bus...

Riding the big city bus for the first time in so long, surrendering control, released from the tyranny of fluid-operated metal monsters.

My arm hangs in a sling, the other hand trapped in a brace—injuries that should feel like loss but instead arrived like permission. Permission to stop. Permission to witness.

I've become a passenger in my own life, in the best possible way.

For once, I'm admiring sunsets instead of just passing through them. The same saturated oranges and purples I've seen a thousand times behind the wheel, except this time I don't have to split my attention between beauty and survival. No lane changes to calculate. No brother's chatter to respond to from the passenger seat on my left. Just the slow burn of the sun dissolving into the skyline.

This earth is beautiful in ways I keep forgetting to notice.

How lucky am I to be chosen to witness all this? To have eyes that work and a window seat and an hour with nothing demanded of me except presence?

Warda plays through my AirPods, her voice weaving through the engine hum and the hydraulic sigh of the bus doors opening and closing at each stop. It feels like a trance, this hour suspended between destinations. Time moving at the speed of public transportation instead of the speed of my anxiety.

The bus rocks gently over potholes I would have cursed if I were driving. Now they feel like a lullaby.

For the time being, I'll just admire.

I'll let someone else worry about the route, the traffic, the getting-there. I'll just watch the world slide past the window like a film I've been too busy to watch, even though I've been in it all along.

Sometimes it takes torn ribs to teach you how to rest.

Sometimes the only way to see clearly is to stop driving.