TGIF

title courtesy of Shak (I know it's not Friday anymore but whatever)

On my way to work, I practice radical acceptance. The wind blows a little harder than I expected. I’m colder than I want to be. This is okay, I tell myself. It’s something I’m trying. I don’t know if it’s working or not. I still complain about the cold, but maybe a little bit less.

I stand behind someone on the escalator going up the subway. He’s wearing scrubs—some medical job, probably under-rested and already burned out. He’s left-handed. I can tell by the way he holds his phone. We walk in opposite directions. I never see his face. I wonder what people observe about me when I’m not looking.

I walk to the McCormack Building for my notary public oath. A man on the 17th floor gives me directions and tells me I look nice today. I beam at him. At dinner, I hug my friend and tell her I love her red coat. I do. Isn’t it lovely, this life? I keep not wanting to write about it, because I feel like it might be ungrateful, or arrogant, or unseemly. Like something might change once I put it down.

While we eat, we talk about engagements. One friend just got proposed to on her birthday. Another friend has strong opinions about this; her ex did the same thing. “That was the first sign we weren’t right for each other,” she says, making a face, and we laugh.

The newly engaged friend doesn’t mind. I have no opinion. It had never crossed my mind to think about something like this, but I like the unfolding, the discovery, all the ways a life can be lived.

We talk about dating, a friend’s new relationship. “It feels different,” she says. “I don’t feel anxious at all.”

I want to say, That’s how it was for me, too. I’m thinking about London and a long walk at night and a feeling of quiet. But I say instead, “I’m interested in what you just said about not feeling anxious. What do you think is different?”

Part of getting older is realizing that people want to tell you what they’ve learned. I feel expansive, so absorbed in everyone else’s journey that for once I’m still, not needing to be anything else.

We grab dessert elsewhere. Two friends get cake so they can try each other’s slices; another just gets a bottle of unsweetened tea. If you knew them, you would know this is exactly in keeping with all of their characters.

I get a red bean bun. I feel like I have all the time in the world to try what I want to try. Like I’ll come back to this shop again and again until I can tell people with authority what’s good and what’s bad. It’s nice to imagine. It probably won’t happen.

“How is the writing?” someone asks.

I make a face. “It’s going.”

I feel like a cliché. I remember why I ran away from this life in the first place, how I hate that feeling of trying so publicly. The truth is, I don’t make time for the things I love. I make time for the things I’m afraid to lose.