The stop sign

The moment I stepped over the threshold of the front door, I felt many emotions at once. Trying to sort them out, I closed my eyes for a brief moment and listened to myself: I was anxious, worried and frustrated. And at the same time I felt liberated, alive, exhilarated and optimistic.
Moments earlier, a large red stop sign, which I had previously raced toward at maximum speed, had forced me to stop. Until that event, my driving had been exactly the same as it always was: to the left and right, the trees and lakes, the cities and houses, the people and animals flew past me while I pushed the gas pedal to the limit. I wasted no time looking after them. I almost didn’t care, because I had a goal in mind and it was very important for me to reach that goal. My route was pleasant. Mostly it went along a straight, wide and paved path. Every now and then there was a bend or even a crossroads so that I could take a new direction, but I rarely did. There were hardly any red lights, however, and I never had to turn around – nor did I want to. I drove on and on. Reached different small destinations, made a check mark on my to-do list and got back on. From time to time I picked up people. Hitchhiking, so to speak. They had the same next little destination in mind and accompanied me along the way. Afterwards, these people often had different goals than I did, so we parted ways again.

One day, the bright red stop sign approached me. From a distance, I could hardly identify it as such at first. Months earlier, it had been looming on the horizon. At first only as a red dot and then more clearly. At first I thought it was an ordinary right-of-way sign. I would have to pass it carefully, look left and right. Maybe I would even turn off myself and would then bring my car back to the limits of its speed limit. Full of optimism, I drove on, not reducing my speed in the slightest.

And then suddenly it was very close. And I recognized it quite clearly, the stop sign. But even worse: Shortly behind this stop sign the road simply stopped in nothingness. I was forced to step on my brakes with all my might. With squealing tires that left a dark gray skid mark on the asphalt, I came to a stop just in time. I got out and peered cautiously over the place where the road ended: a ravine. An endlessly deep hole. A nothingness. On the horizon I saw a road again. But it was too far away for me to guess in which direction it led.

My car had come to a halt for the first time in a very long time. Or, in other words, my life had come to a halt for the first time in a very long time. Suddenly there was no road to guide me. All of a sudden, I didn’t know what was going to happen next. What was I going to do? What would happen next? Was there a way out of my predicament?

Searching, I looked around and was amazed to see my parents‘ house, just as I remembered it from my childhood. It was built of gray bricks and had bright red roof tiles. From the small chimney, which was attached to the side of the house, white smoke rose and mixed with the clear air. Warm, yellowish light filtered through the window in the blue, wooden front door and the smell of apple pie rose to my nose.

In my mind, I sometimes dreamed myself to this place when I sought refuge. This was a place that made me feel safe and that I trusted. A place that might provide me with the answers I needed now. It was the only place I wanted to go now. I stepped into the garden and walked toward the house. The pebble path crunched under my feet. The trees were still bare and no flowers were blooming.

I entered the brick house. A chaos of emotions blazed inside me. I noticed feelings that I expected to have in a situation like this: Frustration, anxiety, confusion. And feelings that I understood only some time later: relief, relaxation, happiness. However, the former feelings clearly took the upper hand for the time being. Angry and frustrated, I tore open the heavy iron door that was located on the left side just after the entrance. Even before I had fully opened the door, the smell of old leather, sweat and melted rubber rose to my nostrils. I entered the room. It was almost empty. Only in the center was a large, leather punching bag dangling from the ceiling. Despite the sparse furnishings, the room was not quiet. Quite the contrary. The room was like a restless animal. The walls didn’t move, but they still crunched, groaned, and cracked incessantly. The room seemed as tense as I felt.

My eyes fell on the punching bag again. He was just in time for me. I was frustrated and needed a way to release my feelings. To give them vent. Determined, I walked toward him. I was so angry. Angry at the situation I found myself in. I had plans and goals, had been working towards them for a long time and had always gotten ahead in life. I took a swing and my first punch hit the punching bag right in the middle. It started to sway slightly. And now, out of nowhere, this stop sign came and blocked my way, blocked my life. Forced me to remain incapacitated and helpless on the spot. Like a game piece that was simply taken from the playing field, although it was about to win. Like a runner who was tripped up just before the home stretch. Like a book from which the last pages have been torn. All these things reflected my own situation. I hit the punching bag hard again, and then again, and again. Anger and frustration, frustration and anger. These were the only two feelings I could identify to the moment. I knew full well that I could not change anything about my current situation, no matter how much I wished I could. The stop sign was there and I knew deep down that it wasn’t just going to disappear into thin air overnight. I felt like I was being treated unfairly. Life had played a nasty trick on me. What had I done to deserve this?

Valuable life time was lost to me, was stolen from me, ran through my fingers like soft, white sand. This realization activated new feelings and emotions in my body and mind. Frustration and anger were now pushed into the background. And I was now one thing above all: troubled. I didn’t know what the future would bring. Was this stop sign dangerous to me? When would it disappear? Will it disappear at all? Will my life ever be the same again? Lack of perspective and uncertainty took their place in my emotional world. And another thought joined in that made me shudder: I had never done nothing in my life. I had always raced along at full speed, hardly allowing myself any breaks, and was always intent on pursuing the next plan, reaching the next milestone in my life. I could feel panic rising in me now, too. Goosebumps prickled down my spine from top to bottom. Was I doomed to do nothing? How does one do nothing? You couldn’t do nothing, could you? But there was nothing to do. Anyway, I couldn’t continue to do anything that I had done before. And I didn’t know how to do anything else. Like a swirl, the questions raced through my head. Repeated themselves over and over again, leaving a tiring chaos in their wake.

I felt my cheeks had grown hot from the fire that blazed inside me, but was slowly dying down. I pressed my burning face against the punching bag. The cool leather had a soothing effect and graciously absorbed the heat from my cheeks. Trying to untangle my emotional chaos, I thought about the last few moments I had just gone through and tried to reflect on them. My state had gone from anger and frustration to lack of perspective and uncertainty to naked panic, which could logically only be followed by utter exhaustion.

What I needed was, quite literally, a change of scenery. I had to leave this noisy room in order to restore order within myself. Ponderous and exhausted, I moved toward the door and stepped out into the hallway. I heard the soft click of the lock behind me. At the same moment, the noises also died away. I was grateful for that. Now I could think more clearly again.

I decided to go through the door next, which was on the right side of the entrance. Carefully I opened it and immediately noticed that this room had a different effect on me. I smelled flowers, wet earth, and freshly cut grass. I heard soft birdsong, the sound of a stream, and the buzzing of bees. When I entered the room, the first thing that caught my eye was the white, huge bed, which was invitingly placed in the middle of the room. The large pillows looked soft and cozy. I walked up to it and gratefully dropped onto the fluffy blanket. I put my arms over my head. When I looked up, I had to smile. The entire ceiling was covered with green plants, moss and vines. Only now did I notice the green overgrown walls and the colorful flowers growing at its lower ends. The room was like a clearing in a forest. I breathed in the familiar smell and noticed how my whole body immediately relaxed. I hadn’t been out in nature for so long, hadn’t listened to the wind in the trees or watched the sun’s rays make their way through the leaves. Hadn’t chased little fish in the rushing river or let ladybugs walk across my arms.

But more importantly, I hadn’t lived in the moment for so long. I thought about the last few days, months, and even years. I had always been on the move, always chasing a goal, never coming to a stop. And although this realization had driven me crazy a few moments before, I now also suddenly realized how worn out I was by my life so far. How restless and driven I felt. How stressed and cramped my body was from all the exertion. How little I had enjoyed the moments I had experienced so far. And also: How little I had lived.

The question that suddenly popped into my head was this: If I were to die tonight, could I say with a clear conscience that I had really lived?
I have experienced many beautiful moments in my life. I have met different people and traveled far. But I often had only one goal in mind in my life. I have often looked into the future, down the road, with my neck stretched. I tried to look past what was happening at that moment. At that time it seemed to me reasonable and right. After all, I had learned it that way. If I wanted to be successful, I had to look ahead. Had to drive the perfect route. Had to choose the right stops only to get back to the next one quickly and efficiently. Of course, I was living in the moment. I was breathing, moving, communicating. But if I died tonight, could I say that I was really living fully and completely?

I looked to the side and saw a butterfly close to my head. I saw the pattern on its wings and the little legs seeking support on the soft blanket. Then it flew away, looking so light. I, on the other hand, felt anything but light. I was suddenly very aware of myself. I felt my back pressing into the mattress and leaving an imprint there. I noticed my arms and hands being tickled by some of my hair strands. I felt my legs hanging heavily off the soft, white bed and the tips of my toes still just barely touching the wooden floor.

However, I felt a heavy stone in my stomach that seemed to be pulling me down. I noticed my temples pulsing, leaving an uncomfortable twinge. I felt my eyes burning and darting restlessly back and forth from time to time. And I felt all these things because I was listening into my body for the first time in a very long time. And I knew all of a sudden that I was not well. And I knew all of a sudden that if I were to die tonight, I would have felt that I should have done something differently in my life.

This realization hit me. For a brief moment it felt as if all thoughts were being sucked out of my brain only to crash back down on mine with a triple intensity in the next moment. I could hardly categorize the feelings and emotions that this realization had triggered. On the one hand, I felt relieved and liberated. I had sorted out my thoughts, had listened to my body, and had come to a conclusion. I had formulated a statement and could now explore further based on that. Could find a solution and put things back in order. Or in other words, put myself back in order.

These positive feelings were confronted on the other side with fear, confusion and panic. Did this realization now call into question my entire life up to that point? Had I wasted my lifetime? Had I been living „wrong?“
The peace and rest that this space gave me suddenly beset me. I felt as if the soft, white bed was sucking me in. As if the green walls were closing in on me, making the room smaller and smaller, as if the plants were taking away my breath. I had to get out of here.

With a few steps, I had reached the door. I was briefly afraid it wouldn’t open, but my fear was unfounded. Within seconds I was standing in the hallway and closed the door silently behind me. Instantly, the sounds of the room also fell silent. Now it was silent around me. So quiet that I could hear my own heart beating. I looked to my left and saw another door. To escape the silence, I decided to explore this next room. When my hand was over the handle, I hesitated for a brief moment, but then pushed it down and entered the room with anticipation. The door closed behind me with a soft click.

However, it was also strangely quiet in this room. I looked first straight ahead, then to the left and then to the right. From all sides familiar eyes looked at me. Again and again the same eyes. In a hundredfold execution. It took me a moment to understand – the room was full of mirrors. Not only the walls were full of mirrors, but also on the floor on the ceiling and in every corner there were small, large, square, round, oval-shaped mirrors. Mirrors with frames made of wood, of metal, of glass. Mirrors that stood on the floor, were attached to the wall or hung from the ceiling. And from each of these mirrors the same face looked out at me: my own face.

In the room before, I had felt my body and myself for the first time in a long time. Now I saw myself for the first time in a long time. I saw my body – my arms, legs, hands, feet. My hair, my face. I saw every mole, every scar, every freckle, every mosquito bite. I saw a person with dark circles under his eyes, brittle hair and a nervous look. I saw a person who looked very tired and worn out. A person who had neglected herself a little. I saw a person who didn’t really seem to be doing well. And the scary thing was that I was that person myself.

Hundreds of versions of me were staring into my own eyes through the mirrors. Restlessness rose in me and I felt dizzy. To keep from collapsing on the spot, I sat down in front of a mirror that stood on the floor close to the door. It was oval and had a golden frame with many scrolls. It looked very old and valuable. After a short hesitation, I looked at myself again and asked myself a question that had burned itself into my mind: Why wasn’t I well? Actually, my life had always been fine. I had always achieved about what I wanted to achieve. I had never had any great difficulties and had always followed the path that offered itself to me.

I thought about this path. It was a path that other people had built. It was a path that many people followed because it was safe and paved. It was also a path that was accepted and approved by society and those around me. It was a path that helped many people succeed. It was also a path that not all people could travel because not all people had the resources to travel on it – Maybe because their car didn’t go fast enough or it broke down more often. So I was privileged because I could drive that way. That’s why it was the way I was supposed to go. It was the way that other people expected me to take. It was a good way, a fast way.
Was it, then, the way I wanted to go? I looked in the mirror again. My body had changed since I was a child. I had grown taller and older. I was an adult now, at least that’s how I looked. But my eyes were exactly the same as when I was a child.

I remembered back to that time. I thought about how wild and unruly I had been back then. My head full of ideas, my hands full of drive, my mind alive. Every day was the beginning of a new wonderful adventure for me. I could shape it the way I wanted. Had so many possibilities. My path had many forks and I always chose another one. Wistfully I thought back to that time. Everything had been easier back then. At that time I was still a child and today I was in the middle of the seriousness of life. I couldn’t afford to keep taking a new turn, to keep turning back, to change my mind and opt for unpaved paths with lots of potholes. And anyway, was my previous path so badly chosen?

I looked at my own reflection again and realized it was only a matter of time before I actually missed a stop sign and went straight down a cliff. My life was moving too fast. While my life was racing along, I was living too little. I was able to succeed in my plans most of the time by following my path, but I was coming up short myself. I could not go on like this. My path had to change. I had to change myself. I could no longer convince myself that everything was good. I had to face the naked truth and do something before it was too late.

Even before I felt the tear myself, I saw it in my reflection. It slowly came out of my eye and made its way along my nose, rolling down my cheek and reaching my chin. There it hung for a moment until it fell. The next tear took the same path. So did the tear that followed. Funny. Even my tears kept taking the same path. But from a certain point, when they reached my chin, each tear went its own way. From that point on, the tear no longer oriented itself to the other tears. I thought about the fact that the time had also come for me to no longer orient myself to the others, but to go my own way. I felt like the tear: in free fall. It was scary and exciting at the same time. As more tears made their way down my face, I smiled as each tear seemed to take pieces of the stone in my stomach with it. I felt lighter. I had made a decision. I was going to change something. The only question was: what?

I stood up and looked around me again. Saw myself and the hundred other versions of me. The person in the mirror seemed more awake now. The eyes were brighter. The back straighter. The gaze directed forward – toward a new goal. I left the room that had presented my own image to me so shamelessly and honestly and felt gratitude.

Opposite the room filled with mirrors, and – from my current vantage point – to the right of the room where the punching bag stood, there was another door. I was sure that this room would help me answer my last question. Full of anticipation, I opened the door and stepped inside.

However, the smile on my face disappeared immediately at the sight that presented itself to me. And my optimism and feeling of security also fled my body. I could hardly place what I saw before me. The other rooms had been alive, had served a clear purpose, and had elicited the answers I needed. They had been filled with certain objects, smells, and sounds, and had had a certain effect on me. This room was different. Here I could see nothing, smell nothing, hear nothing. This room was all white. The walls were white, the floor was white, and even the ceiling was white. Everything was brilliant white. There was absolutely nothing in this room. It was almost unbearable.

I felt the need to turn around on the spot and leave this room forever. What kind of strange place was this? Just as I was about to turn around, I saw a small object lying on the floor – at the very back of the room. Hesitantly, I moved toward this object. At first I thought it was a small stick or a straw. As I got closer, I realized it was something else: a pencil. A normal gray pencil. Curious, I picked it up, turned and twisted it. Searching for an answer.

While I held the pencil in my hand, I suddenly thought of my childhood again. When I was younger, I had often drawn and written with a pencil. Mostly both at the same time. I remembered the forest that could be seen when I looked outside from my desk, which was in my childhood bedroom. I had dreamed of many magical creatures in this forest as a child. Elves, fairies, dwarfs, wizards and mermaids lived there. But also giants, trolls, werewolves and ghosts. Battles were fought, adventures were experienced, cities were built, dreams were realized. With this very pencil I held in my hands, these stories became reality on paper. Hours, days, nights and weeks I used to sit at my desk to record my thoughts and ideas. To stop letting dreams be just dreams. At that time I had been brave, I had dared to think about my dreams and to hold on to them. I dared to give all my thoughts and ideas a chance. I dared to give free rein to my creativity.

As a child I was always and everywhere creative. I always had a small pad and a pencil with me to catch and collect everything. Just like I would catch fireflies in a jar, I would capture the words and images that floated through my head on the paper. I thought about the last time I had paid such attention to my thoughts. When I had taken the time to follow my ideas and let them come to life. I felt that I had nipped in the bud all creativity, all thoughts that might take me off my usual road, my usual path. Why? Why had I made this decision?

I could think of several reasons. One of them was fear. Fear that if I left the paved path, I would not be able to come back. Fear that I would fail. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of what other people would say if I didn’t go the way they expected me to go. And fear of being rejected. The fear was joined by the feeling of comfort. It was easy to always take the road ahead. It was easy to make plans and goals that many other people had already had and successfully carried out. And it was easy not to have to make any big decisions of your own, but to be guided.

Along with the fear and comfort came self-doubt. Could I really go my own way? Did I have the strength to wrench around the steering wheel? Did I have the talent I needed to do it? But I had made the decision to change something. To change my life. If I couldn’t start here, where could I start? I looked at the walls of the room again. The white, which at first seemed threatening, was no longer frightening. Suddenly this white offered me an infinite range of possibilities, for on it I could paint, write, draw, plan, sketch. Through it I could write poetry, tell stories, invent, reflect, communicate and express myself, and organize my thoughts.

I could exist. I could record my existence. I could write down my life and ideas and think them forward. I could be creative. Could make my dreams a reality. The art of writing and drawing offered me the opportunity to reshape my life. My life was a white wall and it was up to me to fill it with content. So I wrote. I wrote short stories, poems, novels, plays, professional articles, diary entries, business plans. And I painted. I painted the forest I had seen out the window as a child, I painted sunsets and the sea. I also painted people, animals, plants and strange creatures from another world. I painted objects – houses from the inside and outside, a car, a screw. I painted abstract shapes and figures. Painted small dots and also pictures that covered the whole wall and connected different drawings.

For the first time in a long time, I let my creativity run wild. My thoughts and ideas bubbled out of me and I could not let the pen slide fast enough over the wall to capture and record everything. I wrote and painted. And I wrote some more and painted some more.

I had just finished the sentence of a short story when the pencil stopped writing. I looked at my hand and saw that it was now just a last piece of small wood. I had used it up. I also realized only now how fast my heart was beating and that I was breathing heavily – as if I had run far. I took a deep breath and took a few steps back. In disbelief, I spun around once. The walls were no longer white, nor was the ceiling and floor. My thoughts, ideas, dreams, desires, fears, imagination covered everything around me. It was as if I were standing inside my own head.

And for the first time in a very long time, I could breathe freely. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel a stone inside me. For the first time in a long time, I felt completely and fully alive.

I looked down at the ground and saw that I had painted the road I had been traveling along so far. I realized that the path I had chosen had not been fundamentally wrong. In fact, it may have been exactly the path I needed to come to this realization now. To realize that it was time to take a turn. It was time for me to take myself seriously, to listen to my body, and to trust my feelings and my ability. It was time to stop paying attention to what other people expected of me. No longer took the pre-paved path that was easy but just didn’t suit me. No longer locked my thoughts, ideas and creativity in the basement of my mind. It was time to live. And I felt alive. I remembered the question I had asked myself: If I were to die tonight, could I say with a clear conscience that I had really lived? I could now answer that question in the affirmative. If I were to die tonight, I could say with a clear conscience that I had lived.

I looked to the side and saw the large door that I had painted among various stories, diary entries and plants. Even though it seemed absurd, I wondered if it could be opened. I went to the door and tried to turn the knob of the door. With a swing, it flew open, revealing my car, which was still parked on the side of the road. Without going through the door, I looked around.

The garden was the same as before and the road from which I had come was the same. The stop sign was gone and the black hole was filled in. The old road merged into the newly paved road. I saw that I could drive on it with my car without any problems. However, I also saw that some roads led off this road. Most of them were not newly paved, but were broken or only covered with earth. Some were immediately recognizable at first glance; in others, I could only guess that it was a path.
Even though I hadn’t decided on a path the moment I stood in the doorway, I knew it wouldn’t be the newly paved road. Determined, I was about to step through the door, but glanced sideways at the wall for a moment and saw the short story I had written on the wall with my last piece of pencil. I saw the title: The stop sign.

I began to smile. The stop sign had started it all. Through the stop sign I was torn from my life, was forced to question my path, and had ultimately grown on myself. Even though that stop sign had triggered many negative emotions in me, it had still led to a series of positive emotions.

With that thought, I walked through the door. I felt the wind coming up, swirling my hair, and walked purposefully with quick steps toward my car. In my pants pocket, I still felt the small wooden remnant of the pencil. I knew it would forever remind me of the stop sign that changed my life forever.