MY EYES UP

**My Eyes Up**

I used to walk with my eyes down. It wasn’t that I feared the world—at least, that’s what I told myself. It was more that the cracks in the pavement felt predictable. Safe. They didn’t ask anything of me. They didn’t require the vulnerability that comes with meeting another person’s gaze.

But on the morning everything shifted, the universe offered me a simple instruction: *eyes up.*

It happened at the corner of Maple and Fifth, the same crosswalk I trudged through every weekday on my way to the bookstore where I worked the closing shift. It was early—just bright enough for the sky to show its first brushstroke of peach. I had my headphones in, my mind drifting somewhere between yesterday’s regrets and tomorrow’s half-formed plans.

That was when I heard it. A voice, soft but steady, carried on the thin November air.

“Eyes up.”

I froze, startled. I scanned the street. No one was close enough to have said it. A cyclist zipped by, focused on beating the traffic light. The man walking his terrier was humming to himself, oblivious to me. No one looked my way.

Had I imagined it?

I shook my head and kept moving, but the words clung to me like a loose thread begging to be pulled.

At the bookstore, the day settled into its usual quiet rhythm: restocking shelves, recommending books to tourists, pretending I didn’t notice the flickering ceiling light no one ever came to fix. But every so often I’d catch myself raising my gaze—just a flicker—before instinctively dropping it again.

By late afternoon, I convinced myself the voice had been nothing more than my overly tired brain inventing meaning where there wasn’t any.

But the next morning, it happened again.

Same corner. Same soft, steady whisper.

“Eyes up.”

This time, it vibrated through me like a struck chord. I lifted my head—and for the first time in longer than I cared to admit, I really looked around.

The world was different from this angle.

Buildings stood taller. The sky seemed wider. The people passing didn’t look like blurred shapes but travelers on unknown journeys. A woman laughed into her coffee. A kid in a red coat tried—and failed—to catch a pigeon. A barista wiped down an outdoor table with the kind of care that suggested she loved her job.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d been missing.

Still, a question lingered: Who was speaking to me?

The third morning brought answers.

“Eyes up,” the voice said again.

But this time, I followed it.

Across the street, on a bench dusted with frost, sat an older man with silver hair and thick glasses. He wasn’t looking at me. In fact, he was reading a worn journal, humming under his breath. But when he sensed my stare, he lifted his head and smiled—not the tight, polite kind, but one full of warmth, as if he’d been waiting for someone to notice him.

I crossed toward him.

“Did you…” I hesitated. “Did you say something to me yesterday? And today?”

His smile deepened. “Not out loud.”

I blinked. “Meaning…?”

He tapped the side of his temple. “Sometimes we hear what we need. Not always from others.”

Cryptic. Maybe even a little strange. But something in me understood.

He closed his journal. “You walk like you expect the world to hurt you,” he said gently, not unkindly. “But you’re missing the parts that might heal you.”

A lump formed in my throat. “I’m trying,” I whispered.

“I know. And you will. But it starts with keeping your eyes up. You can’t meet your future looking at your shoes.”

Before I could respond, he stood, tucked his journal under his arm, and walked away—slow, deliberate steps, like a man in no rush to reach wherever he was going.

I never saw him again after that day.

But his words stayed.

I began lifting my gaze more often. First for moments, then minutes, then whole mornings. I learned the shape of the skyline at sunrise. I learned that the barista’s name was Lena, and she really did love her job. I learned that the kid in the red coat walked his route to school every day, always chasing birds with hopeful enthusiasm.

Most of all, I learned how much lighter the world felt when I allowed myself to participate in it—fully, openly, eyes raised.

And now, every time I turn that corner at Maple and Fifth, I whisper to myself, just loud enough for the brisk air to catch it:

“Eyes up.”

Because life doesn’t wait for those who stare at the ground.

But it welcomes those who are willing to look it in the eye.