A friend was driving around with a screw in his tire. It seemed like a significant problem, and yet he kept ignoring the detail about making an appointment with a mechanic. Round and round the wheel went, over dry pavement, and in the rain, without blowing the tire. Somehow, it did not even leak enough air to matter, which justified ignoring it for a few more days. 

Finally his wife took it in to the gas station, expecting the worst. 

But the mechanic pulled the screw out easily. There was no need to plug it, he assured her. Maybe tires are self healing these days, like a remarkable kind of concrete someone invented, or a genre of books in the local Barnes and Noble. In any case, my friend was able to drive away without those niggling worries. 

There are times when I avoid a problem that seems like it will disable me. Pretending that it does not exist is less ominous than facing it. 

But then sometimes I am surprised by how simple the solution is. Maybe it is an apology, or a gesture of goodwill. A relationship that kept going round and round with old patterns and no way to escape them can be liberated. 

That's when I can really get where I need to go.