Sometimes a question comes at you before you know you are asking it.
I was driving to work recently on a route I had not taken before. I had changed jobs and was experimenting with different ways to get there, looking less for the fastest route than for one that felt reasonably direct and a little more peaceful.
The road I chose that morning was a wide four-lane street running through a residential area. As I drove, I found myself wondering whether I was going to run into school traffic.
A few minutes later, I had my answer.
Ahead of me was a large crosswalk, a traffic light, and a crossing guard. I stopped behind the white cross walk line. I watched as she stepped out with her whistle and stop sign, crossed the median, and stood in the roadway while a child made it safely across.
For some reason, I began measuring the risk.
Was she really in much danger?
The traffic was stopped. There was a light. She had a sign in her hand. Everyone could see her.
Maybe the risk was almost nothing.
Then I thought about it a little longer.
Any time you are standing in the middle of a road, there is some risk.
Someone could be looking at a phone. Someone could be distracted. Someone could be impaired. Someone could simply make a mistake.
The odds might have been very small, but she was still the one standing in the road.
And somewhere in the middle of evaluating her risk, my attention turned.
How much risk do I take in my own relationships?
Not physical risk, necessarily. The other kinds.
The risk of being rejected.
The risk of being misunderstood.
The risk of making the first call.
The risk of saying something loving without knowing what will come back.
The risk of giving time when I would rather keep it.
The risk of allowing someone else’s need to interfere with a plan I had already made for myself.
As I thought about it, I realized that much of the risk I take is fairly light.
I don’t mean that as an indictment of myself. I try to be kind. I try to be generous. I try to show up for the people I care about.
But there is a difference between being a decent person and being a vulnerable one.
It is possible to give while still staying mostly protected.
To give when the calendar allows it.
To help when the cost is manageable.
To be available when we have the emotional room.
To care deeply, but still keep one foot safely on the curb.
None of that is wrong. In fact, much of it is good.
But I wonder whether love sometimes asks for something more.
Not recklessness.
Not martyrdom.
Not putting ourselves in harm’s way simply so we can say we did.
Just a willingness, now and then, to let something actually be at stake.
The crossing guard probably wasn’t thinking about any of this. She was simply doing her job. A child needed to cross the street, and she stepped into the road.
Maybe that is part of what stayed with me.
She wasn’t measuring what it was costing her.
I was.
And by the time I drove away, I was no longer wondering how much risk she had taken.
I was wondering how much of my own life I spend safely behind the line.