It was a dark and warm night miles away from home. We sat up in bed, fighting the sheep jumping our beds summoning us to sleep, talking the night away as girls tend to do when clustered together.
“I wish falling in love was like traffic lights, so then I would know if I should go for it, slow down or just stop.” My friend says exasperated.
My other friend nods her head emphatically.
And I laugh with skepticism. “So what you guys want is a fail-proof system to know who is worth keeping and who isn’t?”
“YES!!!” they both said at the same time.
“Well though it would make it so much easier to move through the world if we could pick and choose what connections to make or any at all. That’s just simply not realistic. Love will always be a risk, because people are always a risk, so therefore relationships are all risks”
“Let me dream Miriam. Just let me dream that it wasn’t so darn hard!” she said as she threw a pillow my way.
And thus began a long conversation about the relationships we should have brought to a screeching halt, the ones that should have been approached with caution, and the ones we wish meant to take action.

Red means Stop
She loved a man who by sight loved her. But his ways were controlling and jealous. And he used any leverage as possible to make her cry. So she cried a lot.

“You know I passed the red light” She confides as she tells her story. “And I paid gravely for the consequences. By the time I realized I had it was too late to hit reverse. I was knee deep in love with the man.”

Loving someone will always require a leap of faith, and the truth is that soft landing is never guaranteed. But just like traffic lights are there for a reason so are the irrevocable mistakes you see your significant other make.

For her it was easy to be blinded by them in the beginning, but when her life became full of misery because of his insecurities she became frantic, unsteady. She’d passed the light all right, dove straight into oncoming traffic and all she could do was flinch at the flashing headlights.

“I couldn’t hold a conversation with that of the opposite sex without him thinking it was like cheating. I couldn’t have a moment alone without him knowing my whereabouts. And he took advantage of the fact that he was older, used it as leverage to make me feel insecure about the decisions I made. For him I was too young and immature in comparison to know what I was talking about. I wasn’t supposed to have an opinion about anything. It was his world and I was just living in it.”

She was so morbidly counseled by her own insecurities that she viewed the times he made her cry as a sign that she loved him more than anything. That the fact that he could move her so should be the reason why she should stay. She couldn’t knee deep in to the relationship recognize that this was a sign of his poor character. His mean streak of hurting her so he could always one-up her in any argument.

But there’s a fine line between love and a waste of time. Recognizing it sometimes mean coming to a screeching halt. And their story did. Of course not before creating massive damage and debris. Have you ever witnessed a blindsided accident by someone who passes a red light? Everyone around them is painfully aware about what is about to happen and yet can’t do anything but flinch and watch as two vehicles collide. Debris flies everywhere. Even on looking traffic can sometimes be affected.

By the time she realized her worth and ended things it was too late to pull over, or even put her emergency lights on. Their story had collided and created debris. Till this day she finds herself picking up the pieces and restoring the damage that was caused to her heart. But she takes things day by day, realizing it’s just all part of the process. Till she’s ready again to venture out into the road again.

Yellow means Caution

Yellow means caution even though most of our lives we’ve been told “Yellow means go faster.”

“He was my best friend Mimi. My high school sweetheart. My first love. My first naïve and brought to life fairy tale. Oh at first everything was looked through rose colored glasses but I began to notice small changes. Poor decisions he would make. Until I finally became an option and not a priority.”

“Did you love him?”

“Of course I loved him. He was my everything in the way first loves always are. He knew how to take my breath away. He stole my heart. But I wasn’t blind when he started changing. He always had an exit strategy out of any argument we had. He always had a reason for why he was coming around less and less.”

She observed her surroundings as he became slippery soap in her hands. The older they both got the more they outgrew each other. And it was becoming painfully aware that all he wanted was a way out. He wouldn’t call. Wouldn’t care for her heart the way he once did. He always had more time for someone else than for her.

“I finally realized that the person I fell in love with wasn’t there anymore so why was I?”

“So you walked away?”

“More like ran. When someone’s ideals change, when the best thing they are good at is lying. When trust becomes such a huge issue. You sight the red flags. You Read the sign that says “Dead end Street”. You realize it’s time to save face, even if it’s too late to save the heart.”

She, clear minded, made a decision to override the feelings of the heart. Because the heart is treacherous. He was what she wanted but not what she needed. They might have been driving along side each other but it was now at completely different speeds. And they were no longer on the same page. But it was hard. Because when you’ve loved someone for that long, you become terribly attached, and the Jaws of Life must be used to pry you apart from familiarity.

“Years later he came into my life again, and for a second, I won’t lie, I got caught in the nostalgia of it all. He hadn’t changed his core, and I realized I couldn’t just close my eyes and disregard my ideals. I approached the light and it was yellow again and this time I knew to hit the brakes.”

Realistically speaking it takes time to learn that a yellow light serves as an aid. It’s the shade of gray in the black and white of life. It’s the blinking signs on the side of the road that requires notice. Like the way orange cones are put in place to keep us out of a lane they also serve the purpose of declaring a site under construction. The world is always speaking to us every day, in many different forms; we just don’t know how to listen.

SD once wrote that: “So many times it seemed like there would be chances to stop midstream. But it was even worse when you knew at that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you wouldn’t budge.” That’s the reason we need those flashing lights at times, not to distract us from reaching the actual destination but to simply help us embrace the need to be aware of our surroundings. So that when we do get there, we get there in one piece.

And learn to embrace traffic light cameras. They capture at times mistakes we aren’t aware we are even making. Learn from it. So the next time the same scenario is readily available you won’t choose the same route again, you’ll even detour if deemed possible.

Green means Take Action
There’s no greater feeling than getting all green lights on the way to reach your destination. It makes you feel fortunate. And if you’re running late it helps for you to get there faster or on time. A green light in a relationship means an open passage. A blank page where there are many stories to be written in. It’s an open door to potential.

But we shouldn’t mistake it with a walkway clear of potholes or debris, because that realistically does not exist. In the words of SD: “No relationship is perfect, ever! There are always ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater. The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that is the key. It’s like a big pie chart and the LOVE in the relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.”

And it does. So you’ll find ways around those potholes. Because being deeply loved by someone gives you strength and loving someone deeply gives you courage. That much I do know.

So when it comes to your life and your relationship, where do you stand? What color lies ahead of you? Look! You don’t want to miss it. For it may decide if you take action, if you approach with caution, or if you should bring that vehicle of a heart you are driving to a screeching halt.

The truth is there is no fail-proof system to help us know who is worth keeping and who is worth throwing out. We have to wing it. We have to hope that the choices we make and the people we deposit our faith on won’t fail us. And even if they do that eventually things will turn out like they should. And that eventually the mile marker and GPS will say “You have reached your destination. You have arrived….”