This morning, in the shower, I traveled to the multiverse!

I was standing still, with my eyes closed, as the warm water washed over me. My hand reached out toward the wall, searching for the soap dish. The soap dish that hasn’t been there since we remodeled several years ago. And all at once, it was 1994. And 2016. And 2024.

All at once. I lingered there in some sort of psychological-sci-fi limbo…

This keeps happening.

Over the past two years, I have driven to the train once or twice a week, to drop off or pick up the big kid. The station is in a neighboring town, in a shopping area that I frequented when I was younger.

My friends and I would ride the bus there from Newark, in the late 1970s, to buy carpenter pants at the Army Navy Store, and 45s at the Record Shop. We drove ourselves there, in the late 80s, to eat lunch at Willie’s Diner, and buy clothes at Mandees. I knew those streets so well.

Now, nearly every time I take this trip, there is a moment where I pause/cross into the multiverse.

As I approach the traffic light at the intersection of the main thoroughfare, I travel through time. I know I have to drive straight through the intersection, but I am paralyzed for a split second.

When I was younger, I could only make a left or a right here. The oncoming traffic was one way out only, and there were large DO NOT ENTER signs posted on the light posts.

But now, those signs are gone. The traffic pattern changed many (20?) years ago. Now, I can drive straight across The Avenue.

But something inside of me, some deeply ingrained pathway in my brain, signals me to stop, and to make an important decision. Right or left?

DO NOT ENTER. It’s 1977. Right or left?

Then, something inside of me sees that the signs are no longer there. I make the decision to go straight. It’s 2024.

Then, something inside of me is afraid that I have made a mistake. I grab the steering wheel tighter, as something inside of me imagines a car coming at me, head on. What year is it?

Then, something inside of me realizes it is, in fact, 2024.

Then, most of me relaxes…

This keeps happening.

In the past, in a past reality, a one way street existed here. In my brain, in some moments, it still exists.

There is a new traffic pattern, but there is still an old neural pathway in my brain. A pathway that was put there to protect me from oncoming traffic. A pathway that puts me on alert as soon as I approach this intersection. Even though I know that the one way street no longer exists. Even though I know that it is perfectly safe to proceed.

I’d like to say that each time I make the ride to the train station I stress less and less about the possibility of oncoming traffic. I’d like to say that eventually, I will reach a place where I no longer see the flash of an oncoming car in my mind. But that’s not how it works.

Our brains will sometimes hurl us through time and space, following old patterns, even if they no longer serve us. Even if they are no longer real or true.

This is how we are wired, for survival. And this is also how trauma works. When new patterns are introduced, safe patterns, it takes a long time to deepen them. And the old ones never fully disappear. They might seem gone, but they can reappear at any given intersection.

Some days my brain is fully here in 2024. Some days, I’m everywhere, all at once.