"The 911 Road" by Sabrina M

      35 years of driving background would seemingly prepare you for any obstacle the open
roadways could throw at you, yet in the shaded awning of the jungle, a million years of experience could not have prepared my father for what was to occur.
     After seeing photos of the breathtaking landscapes of Costa Rica on Google, my father decided that our annual summer family vacation would journey a little farther south of the equator. Our days were charged with bus trips through sugar plantations and monkey territories, hikes through the forest, swims in the humid rain, and a cuisine of the most delectable regional foods. Although we rented a car for our trip, most of the rides we took were on tour buses, as the locals would be more familiar with the terrain than us Americans, but after a curiosity in what lay beyond the tree line urged us to take the car ourselves deep into the wilderness, mystery began to sneak in.
Google Maps had guided us to the most astonishing of beaches, but monkey noises and the impending nightfall urged us to head back to the hotel. With the GPS now offline, we had only our memory to guide us through the foreign land to the safety of our resort. As the road became bumpier, our fears heightened, and soon, we were all clutching the sides of the seat, eyes glued to what parts of the path we could glimpse through the dim headlights. Now engulfed in

the darkness of the jungle, we all felt a sense of impending peril. The road was too narrow to make a U-turn on, and it was too dark to merely reverse your way back through, so forward we continued. Until suddenly, water surrounded the car. Quickly shifting gears to reverse out of the water, we realized we had landed on the bank of a river with an unknown depth. To simply drive through the river would be almost suicidal, yet there was no other place to go. Images of a potential news article titled ‘American Family of Six Dies in Costa Rica’ prompted my dad to send my mother out into the unknown to scope out the area, locking the car door behind her, so whatever would potentially kill my mother could not get to us as well. The river seemed to go on forever, only pushing us more into the terror we already found ourselves in. Headlights, approaching from behind, snapped us back into reality, though. A local was now with us, although we did not know whether they could be trusted.  With the little Spanish I knew, we managed to ask them for help. The angels driving the minivan agreed to drive slowly in front of us, a light unto our path. After crossing two rivers, we realized that those bodies of water were not ends to our path, but merely obstacles. We had allowed the fear of the unknown to overwhelm our thoughts and rationality, forcing us to stay glued to our current predicament, unable to depart.
     Well into the next day, we elected to drive the road, which Google had named the 911 road, once more. In the daylight, the endless river now seemed as threatening as a puddle. But how could something that managed to suck the life out of our very lungs only a few hours earlier now seem so irrelevant? Were we all just overreacting, or was there something more prominent at play that we could not realize? Does seeing the finish line really make our troubles less troubling?

     Many times throughout life, challenges seem to overwhelm us, especially when there is no end to be found. The anxiety, fear, and panic that accompany only hurt us even more, yet usually, the seemingly perilous journey yields a pleasant outcome. We tend to have tunnel vision; only able to see what is occurring right at this moment and never the whole picture. Uncomfortable situations, as a result, become unbearable, and awkward moments last a lifetime. Knowing the outcome before being placed in certain circumstances is rarely a plausible expectation, but realizing that you are always more significant than that which you fear can prove helpful.
     Driving back on that 911 road taught me that when the ending is shrouded in a layer of darkness, and I can barely see what is going on right in front of me, things seem a lot scarier than they indeed are. Humans are not afraid of the dark, they’re fearful of their inability to know what lies ahead. But when the light at the end of the tunnel becomes shrouded by the darkness of strangeness and ambiguity, that’s when fear decides creeps in. How we perceive fear can either enlarge or reduce it, but if I initially minimize my anxiety of the uncertain reality that I often seem to find myself in, I know that the conclusion will have a much brighter outlook because tomorrow and all its promises of new hopes and beginnings will find me.
      I have driven down many more 911 roads since then, in school, in my relationships, and with my own personal thoughts and feelings, and they all have one thing in common. In hindsight, the mountains I once thought I faced began to seem like minuscule hills once enough time had passed. I now know I will always be able to cross my rivers and find my way back to safety.