I’m sitting in the parking lot of a closed CVS at 1:45 am, just kind of staring at the dashboard lights. I did three deliveries tonight because the house felt too small, or maybe I felt too big for it, if that makes sense. It’s that weird identity erosion you get when you’ve spent fourteen hours being a domestic utility instead of a person. I guess I needed the hum of the engine to remind me I exist in a physical space that isn't just the kitchen or the nursery. I’m 31, and I’m supposed to be 'settled,' but some nights I feel like I'm just evaporating. I reached over and clicked my seatbelt into place—that sharp, mechanical CLACK—and it triggered something. It wasn't just a safety precaution. It felt like this sudden, violent realization of how thin the margin is between 'being' and 'not being.' I had this incredibly vivid, kind of intrusive mental image of the 1-95 merge. I saw myself just... drifting. One minor lapse in motor control, one stochastic event with a semi-truck, and the whole trajectory of my life just gets deleted. Everything I’m supposed to be—the parent with the mortgage and the kid who finally sleeps through the night—it all feels so heavy, yet so fragile. We like to think humans are these durable, permanent fixtures, but we’re really just soft tissue and complicated electrical signals hurtling along at seventy miles per hour. It’s kind of a collective delusion, right? We all agree to stay in our lanes because if we didn't, the whole social contract would just disintegrate in a shower of glass and sparks. I sat there for maybe five minutes, just gripping the wheel, feeling the weight of that nylon strap across my chest and wondering why I felt more 'real' imagining my own erasure than I do when I’m folding laundry. I think I’m experiencing some kind of prolonged depersonalization. I look at my life—the career milestones I’m supposed to be hitting, the way I’m 'supposed' to feel about being a stay-at-home parent—and it feels like I’m reading a manual for a machine I don’t know how to operate. I’m right in the middle of that demographic where you’re expected to have 'arrived,' but most days I just feel like I’m idling in a driveway. I guess the guilt is the worst part. I have everything I asked for, and yet I’m out here at 2 am seeking the comfort of a potential catastrophe just to feel a spark of urgency. It’s like l’appel du vide—the call of the void—but filtered through a mid-life crisis that’s happening a decade too early. I’m not saying I want it to happen. I don’t. I love my family, I guess. But there’s this seductive quality to the idea of total, irreversible finality. It would be so simple. No more performing the role of 'competent adult.' No more worrying if I’m failing at the only thing I’m currently 'productive' at. Just a sudden, sharp conclusion to the narrative. It’s a very clinical way to look at it, but maybe that’s how I have to frame it to keep from actually losing it. I wonder if other people in their thirties feel this way when they’re alone in their cars. We all look so put together at the grocery store or the park, but maybe we’re all just one intrusive thought away from realizing the total absurdity of it all. We spend so much energy building these futures, these 'identities,' and then we strap ourselves into metal boxes and risk it ALL for a fifteen-dollar burger delivery. It feels sort of... pathetic. Or maybe it's just human. I can't quite tell the difference anymore. My phone buzzed with another order, some late-night Taco Bell run for a college kid, and I just stared at the screen. The blue light felt like it was burning through my retinas. I started thinking about the synaptic pathways that govern our choices. Why did I put the seatbelt on if I was thinking about the end? It’s a survival instinct, I guess. The biological imperative to keep going even when the 'self' is tired of the scenery. We’re hardwired to protect the vessel even when the cargo is feeling kind of... hollow. I finally put the car in gear and pulled out. Every time I hit a bump or saw headlights in the rearview, that image of the accident flickered back. It’s like a phantom limb, this awareness of how easily things could break. I think the isolation of the last year has done something to my brain. It’s made me hyper-aware of the machinery of my life without giving me any of the joy that’s supposed to lubricate the gears. I’m just a driver. I’m just a parent. I’m just a collection of roles that could all be canceled out by a single, sharp turn of the wrist. I eventually got home and sat in the dark driveway for a long time. The house was quiet, and the guilt hit me again, heavy and cold. I’m lucky, right? That’s what I’m supposed to tell myself. But as I unclicked that seatbelt, the silence felt louder than any crash could have been. I guess I’m just looking for some kind of clarity that isn't tied to a disaster, but I don't know where to find it. I’m just tired of being the only one who sees how thin the glass really is... everything just feels so precarious. Maybe it always has been.