Tuesday, the roundabout, the five words

It's a Tuesday a couple of months on, and you're in the car on the way to your in-laws, and you've said the second exit is quicker. Your partner says the third. You start to explain why, and halfway through the explanation you remember the roadworks, and the ground goes under the sentence, and you feel the reach for something weaker.

You stop. "Actually, the roadworks. I was wrong about that, the third's quicker." There's a beat. Your partner says "I only know because of last week," and you take the third exit, and you're at the in-laws four minutes early and talking about something else. That's all it was. A sentence, a beat, and an evening that went the way evenings go when nobody's sitting in roadworks to be right.

The turn will keep coming. Being wrong isn't a thing you get past. What changes is what happens in the second after, and it changes one sentence at a time. Some of the sentences will be late and some will be five words and some will be three sentences in a meeting, and a few Tuesdays will be held, and none of that is the point. The point is that the turn has stopped being something to hide.

So here's the one thing. The next time you feel the ground go under something you're saying, don't reach for the weaker argument. Say the five words, and then say nothing, and see what fills the silence. It's usually the other person, and it's usually kind, and it's always shorter than the roadworks.