I do, therefore I am?

It’s just past 8pm on Tuesday night and I am upstairs in my bedroom. Reclined on my bed, I lounge in my sweatpants, t-shirt and hoodie while I scroll, absentmindedly, through Instagram and listen to a podcast. Then My phone vibrates. It’s a text from my friend Maggie.

“Are you busy?” she asks.

“Nope!”

“I have a dilemma.”

By way of several more texts, Maggie explains that she is in a parking lot outside of Big Lots. She went there to pick up the doggie poop bags for her pup Scooter’s morning walk. But when she got outside to the empty, low-lit parking lot, she saw an older lady unable to get into her car. Apparently, the lock was jammed. Now Maggie is trying to decide what to do. There is nobody else around. The store closes at 9pm. It’s dark. And it’s raining. Even though the lady called AAA and Maggie gave her a poncho to stay dry, it could take hours for help to arrive. Should she drive this lady home, wait with her until help arrives or leave?

After few more texts back and forth, Maggie decides to stay in her car and wait until AAA gets there. To which I respond:

“I’m coming over. I will wait with you.”

Jazzed to get out of my house and see a friendly face, I jump up, bounce downstairs, slip into some shoes, and take off in my car. But in this steady, drizzly kind of rain, the 10-minute drive across town is miserable. The refracted light from the oncoming cars makes it difficult to see and, in some stretches, the glare, the dark, and the rain mix together to obscure the lines on the roadway. To maintain focus, I clutch my steering wheel tight and sit up pin straight.

On the outskirts of the other side of town, I finally see the sign for the Hibachi buffet which is right next to Big Lots. Relieved to get off the road, I drive down into the parking lot below. That’s when I see a fire truck parked near Maggie’s car. The closer I get, I notice two volunteer firemen standing next to the other lady’s car.

After I park, Maggie waves at me through the windows. She is as happy to see me as I am to see her. That’s when I exhale and realize, for the first time, that I was holding my breath the whole way here.

As soon as I climb into the passenger seat of Maggie’s SUV, she gives me a status update and explains why the fire department is here (Maggie called them). Finally, she turns to me and says:

“But enough about all that. How are you doing?”

“Honestly? I am totally freaked out.”

Yesterday, I delivered the latest (and probably final for now) draft of my book to my editor. Now I have no idea what to do. And I feel like I should be doing something.

“Girl, you are forging a new path.”

“I don’t want to forge.”

“Well, too bad. ‘Cause you are doing it, bitch.”

As soon as that last word rolls off her tongue, we both howl and hunch over with laughter. I even slap my hand several times on the center console with delight. Maggie rarely talks like that, and hearing her do it now, while calling me out on my refusal to embrace where I am, cracks me up more than anything else. But it does not assuage my discomfort with all of this…space.  

Since the start of the summer, right after Memorial Day, I worked with an editor on the first draft of my book. When I got back the final set of notes at the same time as my full-time job ended in August, I got up early every day, put on real proper clothes, had a cup of coffee and sat down at my computer. For at least eight hours each day, even on weekends, I worked on the re-writes. Within two weeks, I was done.

Before I did anything else, it was time to read through the whole thing again, front to back. But to do that, I did not want to be tied to the screens on my desk or my laptop; I wanted a physical copy I could take with me wherever I went. So, in the afternoon of Friday the 13^th and before the evening rush hour started, I copied my book to my USB drive and drove across town to Staples to print it out. When I got inside and walked up to the collection of self-serve printers, I changed my mind. To mark this end point after two years of near constant writing, I wanted a proper bound copy, not a collection of loose sheets in a three-ring binder.

When I looked over, sandwiched between the self-serve printers and the technology section full of cables, adapters and connectors, I saw the printing department. Behind the counter, next to the computer terminal, stood a young kid. From the looks of it, he was either a recent high school graduate, or in his first year of college. As soon as I walked over to him, I handed him my USB drive and told him what I wanted. But because I did not convert my file to a PDF, he could not transfer it. After a few minutes, he pulled out the drive and enlisted the help of the older guy—and by older, I mean Gen X like me—who works in the back and does the actual printing.

As they huddled around a different computer terminal and opened the file, I watched as they read through a still incomplete, draft version of the table of contents. That’s when everything came to a stop. The older guy turned around and, from across the room, asked:

“Wait—this is a book? I can’t print copyrighted material.”

To which I responded:

“It is a book. My book. And no, it’s not copyrighted…not yet.”

“Ah, ok. Got it.”

Satisfied he could proceed, the file was re-formatted into a PDF, and the young kid walked back over. While he finished setting up the job and put my contact and payment info into the system, he said:

“Wow, you wrote a book. That is so cool. How did you write it?”

“Uh…”

“Like, did you write it on a computer?”

“Oh, yes, on the computer, on pieces of paper, in notebooks and sometimes using a transcription app. Basically, anything that was handy.”

“That is awesome.”

That made me smile.

“Yeah, I suppose it is.”

When I got home, for some reason, the first thing I did was walk over to my desk, not my sunroom, and sit down. In total silence, I looked across the room and out the window into the back yard. That’s when I grabbed my phone and unlocked it. The first person I wanted to call was Barbara, my mentor for the past seventeen years.

But then I remembered. There was no way I could call her. Barbara was gone.

“Fuck! I just want to call you and tell you about this!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

And then, for the next ten minutes, I bawled. Because finally, Barbara’s passing was real. Painfully real.

The next day, when Staples helpfully sent me a text message to let me know that my job was ready for pick up, I happened to be with my friend Margot. Based on how I felt the day before, and because I have learned not do hard (or easy) things alone, I asked Margot to come with me.

When we arrived, the young kid and the older guy from the day before were both there. And they were excited to see me.

“Oh hey! You should have stayed yesterday. I had it ready for you in twenty minutes.”

“Aw, I had no idea.”

“And, by the way, I deleted the file from our servers.”

“Phew, thank you. I wondered about that after I left yesterday.”

Then, with a big smile, the young kid handed me the first real copy of my book. That’s when a huge smile spread across my face. With Margot standing next to me, I flipped through the pages and took in the moment. All those pages bound together between a shiny black plastic cover held some of the key stories of my life. I was not only holding my book—I was holding…me.

As if she knew what I was thinking, Margot gave me a hug and congratulated me. Then she took a step back and said:

“Let me get a few shots of you so we can commemorate this.”

Flashing my “I did the thing!” face and in full view of everyone milling around, I happily posed for some pics. Soon after, with one more fist pump towards the guys behind the counter, Margot and I headed out.

But tonight, sitting in Maggie’s car in the dark, rainy night, and waiting for a stranger to safely get into her car, I do not feel that kind of celebratory. I feel afraid.

“Maggie, walking into the great unknown is highly overrated.”

I want to turn around, walk to the base of the cliff from which I took a leap of faith, and climb back up to the top. Only that is impossible. There is no going back there.

“Mm-hmm.”

“I have no idea where I will end up or what I should do to get there. Maybe I should stop until I figure it out.” Which really means spin the wheels in my head at a furious pace. Not only will I not go anywhere, but I will also not get any rest.

“You already know it doesn’t work that way.”

“Yeah, I know.”

But without any kind of visible safety net, I feel the need to push myself hard. I should be doing something and be productive. Or least, be seen as productive. Even if, for now and just for today, I do not have to look for my next job. And until my editor sends me the final feedback, there is no work to do on my book for at least another ten days. That means, I have time and space.

And that is the problem. In this space, I can feel just how tired, no, how exhausted I am. Not only am I processing a significant change in my day-to-day life, but I am also grieving a major loss—a loss, that to me, is unquantifiable.

For the past four years, Barbara held my hand and walked me through my divorce, helped me reclaim my voice, and kept me focused on completing my book. Before that, over the course of many, many years, she taught me the true meaning of unconditional love. No matter what I did or said, no matter how quickly or slowly it took me to get where I was going, she never moved. She simply held space. When she got sick three years ago, she let me care for her anytime I was around and in early July, I helped nurse her through hospice. I was there, at her bedside with her husband, when she took her last breath. Just days after that, I found myself in a position to navigate and negotiate the end of my employment. And no sooner did I get through that, than I finished the re-writes of my book. Not only have not taken much time to come apart and grieve, I have not even remotely wrapped my head around any of that.

To avoid the pain and discomfort I know I need to let myself feel, and instead of taking the time to rest and recover, I want to fill up the space around me with worry and fear. It is my default setting. It is based on a deeply ingrained, very old idea that I need to be tough. Like a machine, I should just motor through. And while living that way most of my life certainly made me resilient, it also convinced me to accept the unacceptable—even from myself. Why do I want to do that now?

Besides, being that kind of tough is not how I have done any of this. Not the book. Not accepting the end of my job. Not caring for Barbara. I did all that by being soft.

Just as I put that together, I notice the two firemen get back into their truck and the lady walk over to Maggie’s side of the car. When Maggie rolls down the window, the lady stretches out her arm and says:

“Would either of you like a soda? It is all I can offer to say thank you.”

“Oh, no, we’re good.”

“Ok, well, I’m all set now. Thanks for staying.”

“Get home safe,” Maggie replies.

Then we watch her get into her car and drive off into the night.

“Well, I guess that’s the end of our impromptu parking lot hang out,” I say with a touch of sadness.

Maggie leans over the center console, pulls me in and gives me a big hug.

“I love you, Hella.”

As I squeeze her back, some tears bubble up in my eyes and I say:

“Oh...I love you. And I am so grateful for you.”

After a few more minutes, we call it a night. I hop out of Maggie’s car, climb back into mine and wave at her one more time before I zoom off to the exit.

With the black night sky hanging heavy up above, I pull out of the parking lot and onto the busy main road. The rain is still coming down, and the windshield wipers move rhythmically back and forth.

This break I have right now is a gift. Why not choose to luxuriate in it? And rest? I could offer myself the same unconditional love that Barbara gave to me. I could just…be.

As I turn onto the empty side street, the leaves hang down from the long, thick branches of the tall trees on either side of the road. Underneath this lush canopy, the occasional streetlight shimmers in between patches of darkness. And for the rest of my drive home across the glistening roads, I focus on the light that dances ahead of me.

PS – To protect and maintain the anonymity of the people (and their pets) who make an appearance in my stories, names will aways be changed. The only exception to that rule is Barbara, because a year ago, when she and I discussed it in the context of my book, she insisted I use her actual name. And I will honor her request.