When you suddenly remember something’s been there all along
It doesn't matter, she’d say, if you're doing your morning checklist list at 10:00 a.m., 11:00 or 2, instead of 8:00. Just that you do it.
What was it like to have her constant presence—kind, funny, wise, teasing, supportive—in my life every day, all day?
I first met her in 2003. I'd heard they’d hired someone from California as team manager and that she was driving cross country to move to Chicago and start. I’d driven into the office for a few days to meet with her and be with the client teams. Mid-morning our boss announced that Valerie and her husband’s car had broken down in Nebraska, so she wouldn’t be in until the next day.
Seriously?! I remember thinking. Who misses their first day in the office of a new job? Sounds like an excuse if you ask me…
It didn't take long before I realized how wrong I was…”
The tears come on suddenly— fresh, hot, messy. I stop writing and put my pen down.
Grief is a funny thing.
You think it's long past and that there's no way nearly ten years on you’ll walk into your day and suddenly miss someone with a ferocity that still stuns.
As I write this, my mind is busy trying to answer the wrong questions: why? Why was I thinking about her? Is it because it was just her birthday? Did I see or read something specific that reminded me of her?
My heart just misses her—her daily support, cheering, and challenging questions. Her funny texts, sense of humor and tireless loyalty. I had a life coach, and I didn't even realize it.
I had a best friend.
My soul, though, wonders at the remembrance. Valerie was always working on “getting me out of relo.” I tapped her name into the search bar on my laptop and clicked open a file. A morning pages entry from 2010 (2010?!?) In it, I mention her encouraging me to apply for a writing residency called the River Retreat. In my three pages that day, I was trying to figure out a project idea and was humming through different things to write about-the novel I’d started, the Postville raids, migrants, the Selah piece...
I smile.
In truth, she was always trying to “get me out” of corporate. And lately I've been wrestling with the question: “Do I need to go back in?” I wonder if that would break both of our hearts.
So why is my soul thinking of her now?
I sit up, suddenly clear-eyed. A thrum of energy is moving up my back. It couldn’t be clearer, I realize. It’s the writing.
It's always been the writing. It always comes up, and it’s always been there. Since…forever. And, although not completely, I have avoided and avoided and avoided. Even now the business has become its own distraction. Me taking all this time to “figure out my new niche” has been obscuring and taking energy from what's been there all along.
Writing.
And so, I begin afresh.
Because 15 years ago, and likely even before then, Valerie was already hard at work trying to bring that out of me and into the world. Because she saw something in me that I couldn’t quite see myself.
And because, and this may be the most important reason of all, because life is short and time passes much more quickly than we could ever imagine.
She showed me that too.
What about you? Is there something that’s been there all along for you?