Tuesday. October 7th, 2025. Another day bleeding into another, the calendar pages turning faster than I can keep up. I woke up with the familiar ache in my shoulders, not from sleep, but from the cumulative tension of a thousand Parisian traffic jams. The city was still trying to shake off the morning mist when I pulled myself out of bed, the gray light filtering through my small window in Montmartre. Twenty-four years old, Peter Haus, taxi driver. Not exactly the grand adventure I imagined when I was a kid. The prevalent emotion today? Stress. A thick, suffocating blanket of it.
It’s the usual culprits: the rent always looming, the ever-rising cost of fuel, the endless competition on the streets, the constant pressure to hit my daily target just to break even. Every meter ticking, every passenger’s destination, every red light feels like a small battle. Today felt particularly heavy from the moment I started the engine of the old Renault. The morning rush was a nightmare. A tourist couple argued loudly in the backseat about which museum to visit first, oblivious to the fact that I was navigating a labyrinth of honking horns and suicidal scooter drivers. Then a businessman, tapping his expensive watch, glaring at me as if I personally engineered the traffic on the périphérique. Each interaction, each delay, just piled another layer onto the stress, compacting it until it felt like a stone in my gut.
But then, something happened that knocked me completely off my already precarious balance. It was around lunchtime. I was idling near Place Vendôme, hoping for a decent fare, when a woman flagged me down. She had a stylish, understated elegance – the kind that screams ‘successful Parisian’ without trying too hard. Dark, perfectly cut hair, a tailored coat, a briefcase clutched in one hand. As she leaned in to tell me her destination – a law firm near the Arc de Triomphe – her voice, a clear, confident alto, hit me. It was a jolt, like static electricity, that ran straight through my frayed nerves.
“Excuse me,” I said, my voice probably sounding rougher than usual. “Do I know you?”
She paused, a slight frown creasing her brow, then she looked at me properly. Her eyes, a striking shade of hazel, widened. Slowly, a smile spread across her face, not the polite, professional smile she’d worn before, but one that was genuine, almost disbelieving. “Peter? Peter Haus? Is that really you?”
And there she was: Céleste Dubois. My Céleste. Not ‘my’ as in romantic, but ‘my’ as in the girl who lived two doors down, the one with whom I’d spent countless summer afternoons building forts in the woods behind our childhood homes, the one who’d convinced me to try to learn Latin ‘just for fun’ when we were thirteen. The girl I hadn’t seen or heard from since we both left our small provincial town for the grand anonymity of Paris, nearly six years ago.
The shock was immense. It was like a ghost from a different life, a life where things felt simpler, more hopeful. She slid into the back seat, her initial surprise replaced by a kind of bright, curious warmth. “My god, Peter! Look at you! A taxi driver in Paris! Who would have thought?” She laughed, a genuine, bubbling sound. “What happened to the boy who swore he was going to be an architect and design bridges that defied gravity?”
Her words, though lightly delivered, hit me like a physical blow. The architect. The bridges. The dreams. They were all there, suddenly vivid in my mind, mocking me from the depths of my memory. Here I was, Peter Haus, 24, navigating the same old streets, while she… “And you, Céleste?” I managed, forcing a smile into the rearview mirror. “Still conquering the world, I see.”
“Well,” she said, a hint of pride in her voice, “I’m a junior partner now at Beaumont & Associés. It’s been… a lot of work. But I love it.” She then launched into a quick summary of her life, her studies at Sciences Po, her internships, the relentless hours, the intellectual challenges. Her face glowed as she spoke, vibrant with purpose and achievement. She was everything I wasn’t, everything I’d once hoped to be: driven, successful, confident, making her mark.
I just drove, my mind reeling. The traffic, usually a source of irritation, became a welcome distraction from the churning in my gut. My priority in that moment should have been getting her to her destination efficiently, safely. But my mind was a maelstrom of thoughts: her pristine suit versus my slightly faded uniform, her firm’s sleek glass building versus my cramped apartment, her upward trajectory versus my… sideways shuffle. The challenge, the *real* challenge, was staying focused on my own priorities when confronted with this stark comparison.
What *were* my priorities, really? Just surviving? Paying the bills? Or was it still, deep down, saving enough to go back to school, to try for something more, to finally chase those architectural dreams that now felt like dusty relics? Seeing Céleste, so undeniably successful, so clearly on a path she had chosen and excelled at, made me feel… small. And intensely, painfully stressed.
She paid with a contactless card, leaving a generous tip, oblivious to the emotional earthquake she’d just triggered. “It was so good to see you, Peter! You have to call me. We should catch up properly. We *have* to.” She handed me a sleek business card. Her name, Céleste Dubois, Junior Partner, Beaumont & Associés, stared back at me in elegant font.
“Yeah, Céleste. Definitely,” I mumbled, watching her disappear into the imposing building. I pulled away, my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles were white. My next fare was waiting, another face, another destination. But my focus was shattered.
The rest of the day was a blur of distracted driving and internal monologue. Every passenger, every turn, every minute felt harder. I kept replaying our conversation, her easy confidence, the way her eyes shone when she talked about her work. I know it’s unfair to compare. Her path isn’t my path. But when you’re stuck in traffic, watching the meters tick, and suddenly face-to-face with a living, breathing testament to ‘making it’, it’s hard not to feel like you’re falling short.
The challenge of staying focused on priorities has never felt so acute. My priority for the last few years has been survival, pure and simple. Earn enough, don’t accumulate debt, try to put a little aside for ‘someday’. But seeing Céleste made me question if ‘someday’ was ever going to arrive, or if I was just slowly, steadily drifting further and further from the person I wanted to be. Am I just letting life happen *to* me, rather than making it happen *for* me?
I finished my shift later than usual, the city lights a dazzling, indifferent spectacle around me. The stress, which had started as a tight knot this morning, had unravelled into a diffuse, aching fatigue that settled deep in my bones. I parked the car, the silence of the engine a relief, yet also a stark reminder of the quietude of my own apartment. Tonight, it won’t be just the usual thoughts of bills and tomorrow’s traffic keeping me company. It will be the ghost of Céleste, and the architect I never became, haunting the edges of my consciousness.
I need to refocus. I need to remind myself why I’m doing this, what my goals *are*, even if they feel distant and blurred right now. Maybe Céleste was a wake-up call, not a condemnation. Maybe this feeling of stress, this discomfort, is the necessary push. But tonight, it just feels like a heavy weight. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll try to pick up the pieces and steer myself back on course. Tonight, I just need to sleep, and hope the architect doesn’t visit my dreams too vividly.
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