A Longer Route

We all ride trains of uncertainty in life, wondering if we’ve boarded the right one. This is a story about those moments.

She arrived early, heart pounding, scanning the tracks with a quiet desperation—just in case the train came early, just in case it left without her. She had done everything right. She thought. Studied the map, asked questions, watched others who seemed to know where they were going. And still, as the train pulled in, a flicker of uncertainty gripped her. Was this the one?

She got on anyway.

But there’s no real way to be sure, is there? No flashing sign that says, This is it. This is your moment. Your life begins here. Instead, there’s just the dull rumble of wheels and the ache of wondering. Sometimes, she realized too late she’d boarded the wrong train. Other times, she missed her stop while deep in thought, trying to convince herself it was okay to want something more.

And when it hits—when the weight of being so off course crashes over her—it feels like failure. Not the loud, catastrophic kind. But the quiet, haunting kind. The kind that sits in your chest like a rock and whispers, You should be further. You should be better. Everyone else seems to be.

She looked around at strangers who seemed to know what they were doing, where they were going. It hurt—how hard she had tried. How she had grown, bent, broken, rebuilt. How deeply she had wanted to get it right. And still, she wasn’t where she thought she’d be.

That’s the thing about being human: it’s messy. It’s imprecise. It’s learning to live with the not knowing.

Eventually, she let herself exhale. Not out of surrender, but out of mercy. Mercy for the version of her that tried so hard. She let go of the need to be exactly right and looked out the window instead.

Maybe the next stop would surprise her.

Maybe this wasn’t the wrong train, just a longer route.

She didn’t know. But she stayed seated. And that, for now, felt like grace.