the tale of three squirrels

You didn’t come here to make the choice; you’ve already made it. You’re here to understand why.

Barreling down mountain curves, watercolor leaves stain the road. Please, do not hit a squirrel today.

A quick dash right, one narrowly escapes a rubberized death.

Okay, I sigh, it’s going to be that kind of day.

The second one went left.

So far this morning had been terrifyingly satisfying for all three of us. However, the third squirrel stalled out in the middle of the lane. Right, left, center - of fucking course!

As I held my breath and hovered straight over it, it hit my front driver-side tire, crushing both of us.

I looked in the sideview mirror and let out another sigh.

These roadkill mornings always feel like a personal affront to the sanctity of life. Why do these unnatural machines have unbridled access to everything in their path? And why am I driving one?

The squirrel waited until a 3000-pound giant with rolling feet was overhead to decide an escape route, but did it really know what was coming?

The squirrel’s instincts betrayed it, leading it right into a path of destruction. And maybe we’re no different—steered by doubts, fantasies of control, and that strange, persistent belief that we have all the time in the world.

The half-baked illusion of choice keeps us facing what we sincerely dread.

We thought we had time. We thought we had options. But in the end, we thought it all wrong.

Little did we know every possible path led to loss of some kind—loss of certainty, loss of faith, the loss of something we believed we could control.

But looking back, I wonder—were they choices, or were we already in the trap?

Recently, I've realized how unreliable I am as a narrator of my own story. The tangents alone are enough to drive anyone mad.

And of course, why wouldn’t I be unreliable? My hope extends far further than my self-belief. But my refusal to accept that I’m shifty, impermanent, and morphing as we speak has led to many small deaths along the way. Deaths, that in reality, I should be grateful for.

If we’re like rodents, boxed in by our illusions, are we running toward freedom—or just circling the trap we built ourselves? Impressed by the strength of the locks and the height of the bars; we back ourselves into a corner with a smile on our face.

In our efforts to be good, right, and honorable, we’ve armored ourselves with laws—both external and internal—fearing the truth that would come from breaking them.

What if we’ve placed too much value on being good and right and honorable—as if the shape of our lives depended on the rigidity of these prescriptive ideals alone?

I don’t trust that emotions can live in a vacuum. If I can’t feel it rocking me in the face at that very moment, then yeah, it’s not real. You’d think this emotional hangup would encourage me to live in the moment, to stay present—but the phantom of choice has me convinced I’ve always made the wrong one.

So, we fool ourselves into believing that any one decision could be the “right” one like there isn’t a rotating queue of follow-up cards just on the other side. Baiting us into holding hope and following a line of justifications that we can barely utter half-heartedly.

Do we really think that each choice, each move, stakes a permanent claim on who we are? If so, that’s positively terrifying.

We move through life as though we’re assembling an impenetrable identity, layering on the armor with beliefs and excuses meant to protect us from the very vulnerability we desperately need to crack open. But what do we do when, inevitably, the armor itself begins to crack? When we grow weary of carrying the weight of emotional chain mail and shields made of ideas we no longer believe in?

We must lay it down.

Maybe true honor lives in the release, in allowing ourselves to be permeable, neutral, and observant. Holding space for wordless moments and breathless views. How differently would the trajectory of our lives look if we stopped constantly striving for more to prove our worth—if we released the belief that our mere existence is a sin?

I’d argue that the kindest compliment would simply be, “Ah good, you’re here.” Nothing more.

Being a genuinely good person is not nearly as challenging as pretending to be one.

The better self we're chasing can't be caught with a closed fist, and I don’t know about you but I’ve been whiteknuckling most of this thing.

Perhaps in surrender, not restraint, there’s a freedom deeper than any self-imposed privilege—an honesty in simply being, without the need to be seen as anything at all. Not wishing to be invisible, just not attempting to control the vision before someone else’s eyes.

Our choices are revealed not as bold declarations but as echoes. Each decision—a breadcrumb on our corkscrew path, signaling the places we’re destined to revisit. Haven’t you noticed how you stumble upon the weirdest Easter eggs from your own life? The song that circles back, the name that follows you, the messages that show up on obscure bumper stickers?

But they aren’t immovable monuments to who we are. It’s only in the painfully quiet sting of loss that we see the mirage for what it was—just another layer of self to shed.

Loss can bring confusion and it often does, but it can also bring clarity.

Throughout this cycle, we come to a truth as old as life itself: time doesn’t wait, nor does it bargain with anyone. Time flows, indifferent, washing away each identity we cling to, revealing that our truest self lies not in the choices we think we make, but in the spaces between them—where we let go and simply become. So take a deep breath and remember you’re all the little spaces in between bliss and madness.

Staring blankly at the front end of a Japanese compact sedan, I’m that squirrel with no concept of time and legs like lead. I don’t know how I ended up here, and I can’t say I’m any clearer now that I’m in it. I feel like Neo hesitant in front of the Oracle:

Neo : But if you already know, how can I make a choice?

The Oracle : Because you didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You're here to try to understand *why* you made it. I thought you'd have figured that out by now.

Scatterbrained, I continuously forget the future does not exist. It never has, and the most unreliable aspect of my commentary is this fantastical notion that I’m planning for the future. I plan for a future me—someone stronger, bolder, better—without realizing how these plans always find a way to strip something away from who I am now. I continue to romanticize the ‘not yet,’ but this ache in my body belongs to the present.

There is no future me better than I am now, not in the way I’d like there to be.

The experimenter in me must learn to soften the space between me and what I discover, blur the line, and let more in. I want to indulge the pieces of me that only exist in fiction. The part that hides away on both sunny and rainy days because it’s too afraid of being crushed. But the self no one sees, is that a self at all?

Ostensibly, the self I’m chasing doesn’t even need to exist. Like the squirrel, perhaps I’m caught in cycles of choices already made.

In those moments when the time feels like it’s slipping through your fingers, get your hands dirty. We often project our future selves as better, more put-together versions, not realizing that our juiciest plumpest self—messy, unsure, yet perfectly human—exists right now, not in some imagined ether. This real, beating version of us is desperate for our attention.

The road ahead isn’t something to conquer or master or own but something to sultrily surrender to. So, I’ll roll my windows down, feel the wind on my face, and be happy to be alive.

Here is where I usually make a comment about the monsters lurking in the shadows and my feelings about them, but to be honest I’m just glad to have some company.

xx

RissaJean

Quote from The Matrix Reloaded

P.S. Thank you for being here, it’s been a while.