This past weekend I hung out with some friends at the house I used to rent. It is right on 2100 South in Sugarhouse with a small porch facing the street. If you are not familiar with Salt Lake City then you wouldn't know that 2100 South is a small four lane street that is one of the main roads for southern Salt Lake. I had spent a whole year calling that house, porch, and road home and sitting while watching the traffic last weekend gave me some insight on some of the things that are happening in my life right now that others might relate to.
If you have ever lived on a main road then you can directly relate to the positive and negative things that come with this location you chose to call home. Most of the time, your friends and family will always tell you that they could never live on a main road because they see it as a hassle. Sometimes they are right, like trying to leave somewhere and having to wait for what seems like years just to finally pull out of your driveway because of the heavy traffic. Or trying to fall asleep with a window open and not being able to block out all of the cars, buses, or people walking by reminding you that there in fact is life beyond the four walls that has become your cave. Regardless of some of the hassles I genuinely miss living at that house because of the porch on the main road.
Think about the last time you were driving a car, now try and remember what state of emotion you were in. Was it bad? Were you stressing to make it somewhere on time and had to drive aggressively? Did you not have anywhere to be and just cruised at the speed limit with your windows down blasting your favorite song? This is something I never really thought about until I lived on a main road. Sitting on that porch for even just 30 minutes in the afternoon or around 5 o'clock will show you just how many people there are commuting displaying an array of emotions. It is weird to think that sitting on that porch so close to the road gave me some insight to others people's lives. For example, seeing a SUV or van drive by with kids and making little observations about how the parent driving is completely focused on the road and has a mission to get to their destination safely while the kids in the back are glued to an electronic device or looking out the window making faces at the car next to them. While on the opposite of the spectrum you will see a high school or college student aged driver who is only looking up at the road every 5 seconds because they are drafting a text message or searching for a song to play. This article is not about people's driving habits or the amount of terrible drivers I will see daily not paying attention to the road but rather an insightful story about how small busy roads make you feel.
On a deeper level, seeing how many people drove by my house made me feel small. Not physically, but in the grand scheme of things when you are reminded that there are so many people out there going about their own separate lives. Sometimes we forget to take a step back and see everything for what it is and understand that nothing is really as bad as it seems. There were definitely bad days where I would sit outside and sulk and watch people pass me by but being that close to the street let me analyze their facial expressions. Whenever I saw someone that looked miserable it would get me thinking that whatever happened during my day probably wasn't as bad as theirs if that was the look on their face. Most of the time seeing someone so unhappy helped to cheer me up, not in a bad way but in a way that I knew that a smile on my face would generate positive energy and all the frown was doing for me was creating a cloud of negativity over me and made me unapproachable to others. Coming from a small town I never really had the opportunity to just sit and watch traffic on a busy street in a much larger city. This is probably what baffled me the first few times I discovered that the world did not in fact revolve around me and my life.
Making eye contact with some of the people that drive by can be awkward at times or oddly uplifting whenever you see someone who appears to be having a good day that will nod your way and wave even though you both have no idea who the other is. The main point I want to make about busy roads is that at some point during the day they slow down and become vacant. I don't know why this seems so symbolic to me but it is. Maybe it is because in life we are constantly busy either by choice or just because we need to do what we have to do to get by. If I never lived on a main road then I wouldn't have been able to see things from the outside looking in. I would merely just be one of the many commuters stressed about fighting traffic to get to work or school on time. Basically, what I am saying is that we all need to take the time every now and then and relax. Understand that everything will be alright, and that we just need to take some "ME" time to gather ourselves after those tough days and feel small again. After all, life is too short to be stressed and in a hurry all of the time so do what makes you happy and remember to smile because they are contagious and you never know who might cross your path that needs one the most.
