I used to be judgmental. I used to think that the world was patiently awaiting my contribution. I used to think everyone was like me. Seventeen and out of high school, this is what everyone is doing, right? I lived in a bubble. I understood the world wasn’t fair but I didn’t actually believe it. I truly thought with all of my heart that if you were relatively good, graduated high school, going off to college and had good family and friends that everything would work itself out.

I was naïve, some would say sheltered. I thought if your life wasn’t what you’d hoped it would be, you were to blame and I thought I was invincible. The understanding of actions and consequences didn’t seem real. I was seventeen and Life had only begun. I was on top of the world. I’d walk by myself at night, get into random cars with strangers, drink what I want, take what I want and say what I want. I thought no smoking ads were obnoxious and drunk driving ads over dramatic. I saw things on the news but convinced myself that kind of stuff doesn’t happen here.

It was late and cold, must have been around November. I found my way out of bed and outside my dorm to smoke a cigarette at a picnic table I always used to go to. Headphones in and slow music on, I was looking forward to feeling sorry for myself. But I was interrupted by a lady with a cane. A cafeteria worker, she looked familiar. Taking a seat across from me I head nodded and tried to get my lighter to work. It wouldn’t budge and she offered me hers. Cold and my favorite song almost over, I took it. She told me she was waiting for her ride; shift had just ended. She said to me “I used to be just like you”. I asked her what she meant, she told me she had dreams. She had college planned, her future planned, ambitious. She was seventeen and invincible, I guess we all think the same.

“Just graduated high school”, she started to tell me. “Me and my friends wanted to get some ice cream”. Time together was coming to an end and life was about to begin for all of them. So they went to get ice cream, in a town they had gotten ice cream in a million times before. And they drove in cars they had driven in a million times before. And when she told me they accelerated as they approached the train tracks in an immature and impulsive attempt to beat the oncoming train, I had known how she ended up here. On the other side of the picnic table talking to me at eleven o’clock at night. Talking to me while waiting for a ride because her injuries make it hard for her to drive on her own. And I just couldn’t believe it. She was just like me. She did everything right, she went to school, grew up in a good town with good people, she was weeks away from college. How is this fair? How many times have I made mistakes in the seat of a car, how many times have I made decisions that could have ended tragically. And at that moment, my sheltered mindset changed. All of a sudden the stories on the news hit closer to home, the walks alone at night kept me a little more on guard, limits I set for myself became more prevalent and the realization that life doesn’t owe us anything started to sink in.

Years later, that story still haunts me because that reckless teenage mentality was all that consumed my thoughts. And as her ride came and my cigarette burnt out I couldn’t help but think, that seventeen year old in the car trying to beat the train was me.