The light turned green at the intersection of 5th and  Elm,  and I realized with a jolt that I didn’t remember the last three miles. I had been driving, yes—my hands moved the wheel, my foot found the brake—but I wasn’t there . I was a ghost haunting my own driver’s seat, trapped in a cold, circular argument with a version of my boss that only exists in my head. Outside the glass, a world was screaming with life. The wind was whipping through the skeletal branches of the oaks, a frantic, beautiful dance of shedding and survival. A stray dog stood on the corner, shivering, its eyes wide and searching for a kindness I was too distracted to offer. We were all there together in the gray morning light, yet I was miles away, bartering my precious minutes for a handful of worries and a pocketful of regrets. I was ghostwalking through the only Monday I will ever have, oblivious to the fact that the in-between isn't a waiting room—it’s the actual destination. This sense of missing it -...