For most of my life, I thought I was the one steering.
I looked at my choices, my reactions, my shut-downs — the way I pulled away from the woman I loved — and I blamed the man I am now.
I told myself I was emotionally unavailable. Avoidant. Broken. Failing.
But the truth is far stranger.
And far softer.
I was never the one gripping the wheel.
It was the boy inside me.
A boy far too young to be driving.
Feet barely touching the pedals.
Hands shaking.
Eyes wide.
Heart pounding in his throat.
Imagine a ten-year-old placed behind the wheel of a moving car — no map, no guidance, no adult beside him. Just a terrified child trying to steer a life he didn’t understand.
He couldn’t see over the dashboard, so every obstacle looked like a mountain.
Every turn looked like danger.
Every bump felt like a crash.
When he felt abandoned, he jerked the wheel.
When he felt overwhelmed, he slammed the brakes.
When emotions got too big, he froze — because he didn’t even know what the road signs meant.
And I mistook all of that for failure.
I thought the crashes were my fault.
I thought the swerves meant I was broken.
I thought the moments I couldn’t attune to her emotional world were signs of weakness.
But it was never the man failing.
It was a child.
A scared, confused, unprepared boy doing everything he could to keep us alive — with hands too small and a heart too fragile.
He didn’t know how to drive.
Nobody had ever shown him.
He didn’t understand the rules of the road:
how to read emotions, how to stay present, how to offer safety when he had never felt any himself.
He wasn’t careless. He was overwhelmed. He wasn’t reckless. He was drowning.
And every time I spiraled… every time I shut down…
every time I pulled away from love instead of moving toward it…
It wasn’t because I didn’t care.
It was because the child behind the wheel only knew one rule:
Protect the heart at all costs.
Even if it meant crashing into the same patterns again and again.
Even if it meant losing someone I would have wanted to love better.
I didn’t need punishment for that.
I needed clarity.
I needed compassion.
I needed to take the wheel back — from the boy who never should have been driving in the first place.
So one day, after another emotional crash, I finally sat in the passenger seat of my own life.
I looked over at him — his small hands trembling, his eyes full of fear — and for the first time, I understood.
And I said to him:
You were never meant to do this alone.
You should never have been asked to drive.
Thank you for trying.
But I’m here now.
And gently, slowly, I placed my hands on the wheel.
Not ripping it from him.
Not blaming him.
But guiding him. His shoulders dropped. His breath softened.
The road stopped feeling like an enemy.
Because the boy inside me isn’t gripping the wheel anymore.
He isn’t bouncing through life, waiting to crash.
He isn’t slamming the brakes out of fear.
He finally gets to sit beside me — safe, seen, and unburdened.
And I, the man, am finally driving.
Life-Coaching Questions for You
Where in your life might a younger version of you still be “at the wheel,” trying to protect you the only way they know how?
What patterns do you keep judging or blaming yourself for that might actually be survival strategies from an earlier time?
What would it look like to gently take the wheel back — not with force or shame, but with compassion and presence?
