The Driveway

The breakdown doesn’t happen at work. It happens in the driveway.

You pull in. You turn off the engine. You sit. The front door is right there. On the other side of that door is your life. Your people. The version of you that’s supposed to be fine.

You can’t move.

The driveway is where the performance stops. At work you’re fine. In the car you’re fine. On the highway you’re fine. In the driveway, with the engine off and nowhere left to drive, you are not fine. You have not been fine for a while.

Nobody sees the driveway. Nobody knows about the driveway. The driveway doesn’t appear in any HR file or performance review. The driveway is where you keep the thing that doesn’t fit anywhere else.