As the days blend together, Jeff and I fall into a steady pattern—calls and texts threading through the quiet stretches of my routine.
He’s candid about his past. The women on some dating app, the halfhearted connections that never reached deeper than a kiss. He wants more than that; something real. I listen, not to size him up, but because I actually want to understand him, to know him. Just as I hope someone will finally understand me.
We exchange confessions, what he calls “uncomfortable honesty,” as if naming it makes it less risky. He shares his loneliness and the temptations that come with traveling alone for work, while I admit to a different loneliness, the kind that festers within marriage, mothering, and the silent management of a home. Somewhere in our exchanges, the boundaries between us soften. I can feel my guard lowering, my own walls becoming more penetrable, though I can’t yet bring myself to open the door all the way.
One night Jeff and I get into self-descriptions, what words we’d honestly use for ourselves. We identified him as goal-oriented and ambitious. Yet the question sits uneasily with me. I’ve never been good at naming my strengths, at seeing myself as anything but ordinary.
Jeff downplays himself, too, insisting he’s average, except at work. Of course, his role as regional controller isn’t nothing. That’s earned. He’s harder on himself than he deserves, and I catch it in how he talks about trying versus trusting, especially in the uncertainty, the unseen.
The perfectionism that keeps raising the bar right when he’s about to clear it. I understand that ambition has its place, though it can turn into a trap. Push too hard, expect too much, and we miss what’s already there. Sometimes slowing down enough to notice what’s good actually gets us somewhere. I’ve learned that gratitude is what moves us forward.
He thanks me, says talking to me feels easy, like he can breathe. He even calls me amazing. The word feels too big and doesn’t quite fit how I see myself, but I hold on to it anyway as a warmth blooms in my chest, unspoken yet deep. Both of us are grateful for these conversations that leave us both a little lighter, less alone, and that’s enough.
The next morning, he texts me a Bible verse, Matthew 5:37 NLT: Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one. Last night got him thinking, he says. He wants to simplify.
I text back something along the lines of: pause, feel the moment before you rush past it. Stop turning everything over in your head and just let yourself rest without guilt.
Jeff doesn’t respond to that, although a few hours later he sends a YouTube video about fasting. “Just something else to think about,” he mentions.
I had tried intermittent fasting before and quit, mostly because I wasn’t eating well enough to support it. Yet the video is straightforward, practical, and it actually makes sense this time. So I start again, less for the weight of it and more for the clarity. A steadier head, less noise.
I’m sticking with it this time, my focus improving each day, which surprises me. Jeff gives it a shot too, but his schedule gets in the way, and headaches drive him back. I offer the only thing I know—black coffee. He’s on his own after that.
Days pass, and on Friday, we meet at Lowe’s. Jeff wants plants, something living to push back against what he calls the “death” his home has settled into. He’s waiting at the entrance, and when I walk over, he leans in for a hug that envelops me. I rise on my toes, sandals slipping slightly, my arms landing somewhere around his waist. I laugh. He’s tall enough to make me feel like a kid reaching for a shelf.
Jeff compliments my blouse, looks me over in a way that doesn’t feel intrusive, more like he actually sees me. I tell him he looks good too, dressed for the Tuscan Trattoria, which is where we’re headed after. His pick for cuisine, Italian being his favorite, and my turn to pay.
We drift into the garden center, and soon Jeff is deep in conversation with a woman who clearly lives for this stuff. Her voice, then his, fades as I wander off on my own, drawn by the display of green and bloom. I run my fingers over the coleus leaves. Soft, almost velvety, the pinks and greens are so vivid they don’t look real. I stand there longer than I mean to, imagining them in the sunlit corners of my own space someday. A home that feels like a fresh start, especially for my children.
Jeff tracks me down, and we pick a palm for his office. I ask if he’s going to take any of the woman’s advice. He waves it off, saying she’s obsessive, too many plants. I laugh a little, but I don’t entirely agree.
Plants, for me, aren’t just decor. They pulse with a silent hope, a whisper of beauty in the everyday, breathing fresh air into stagnant corners. To nurture them is to nurture a part of myself, a quiet promise of growth. I listen to Jeff dismiss her, wondering if he sees any of that. Still, he asks what I think about the palm, and that counts for something.
Dinner is easy. I order rice balls to start, and Jeff’s never had them, which genuinely surprises me given how much he’s traveled. He likes them, though, and that’s what matters.
He gets going on his organizing streak at home with the vacuum-sealed bags, new Tupperware, a full sweep of the old stuff and bringing in the new. “That’s why I feel so good now. It’s twenty years of a vision coming to pass,” he states, a strange intensity in his voice, then catches himself. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”
Jeff circles back to his marriage, how Melissa handled the house, how the clutter built frustration and quietly wedged them apart. I tell him he did what he could. That Melissa was coping in her own way, even if it didn’t look like coping. She was surviving.
“I remember what you said before.” He nods slowly. “Surviving depression.”
“Yes,” I emphasize, “if we’re a mess inside, it shows up everywhere else.” I hope she’s doing better. I hope he is too.
Then I bring up Reginald and his impulsiveness, the depression that ran through both our lives like a current. Our external world reflects our internal world. The disorder that pushed me towards order, because I had to find some way to survive too. “But I don’t claim depression anymore,” announcing with certainty. “I had it. I don’t have it now.”
Jeff looks at me, his eyes widening as if I just said something he’s going to be thinking about for a while. “Thank you for sharing that. I understand you better now.” He praises my way of putting things, and I believe he means it when he says so. We’re just two people who’ve been through things and are still figuring it out.
He listens, really listens, in a way that’s easy to take for granted until realizing how rare it is. Something inside me loosens a little, like a knot uncoiling in my chest. Each conversation, each small kindness, unwinds a little more of the old uncertainty.
We finish dinner, and Jeff insists I need ice cream, full or not. We get in line behind a dad wrangling two small kids, and Jeff doesn’t hesitate in talking to them, making them laugh, and then he’s paying for their order too. As we walk back to the Square, I praise his act of generosity.
Then he wonders out loud where the mother is, and it snags at me. Why does it matter? I say little, just that it’s not our business. Maybe she’s working, maybe she’s home, either way the dad’s got it handled. Jeff lets it go without pushback.
We find a spot near the fountain and fall into people-watching. Jeff turns it into a game—who are these people? What’s their story? He’s quick with his reads. That guy lifting his shirt to check his abs? “Total musclehead.” The girl laughing too loudly for the crowd she’s with? “Definitely wants attention.”
I play along, though my mind fills in quieter versions, contemplating their real stories—their struggles, their hopes. The guy who works doubles and hits the gym because it’s the only hour that’s his. Or the girl who’s just happy to be out after a hard week. Jeff’s assumptions aren’t exactly wrong, just surface-level.
Then he clocks a young Black man cutting through the square, slows his commentary, and starts wondering what he’s up to. There’s a low hum of suspicion in his voice, and his questioning pricks at me, a familiar unease.
I watch the man, noticing the purposeful stride and the angle of the bag hanging over his shoulder. “He’s got a food delivery bag,” I point out. Jeff nods and drops it. Not every story is what we assume.
After we walk around the Square, the conversation shifts into high school. Jeff played tennis for years, and was serious about it. Yet I can barely pull up anything from back then. Just clubs, maybe track, mostly static.
“Would you ever run with me?” he asks.
I pause. The honest answer is that I remember little of those years because there isn’t much worth remembering; those childhood memories are locked away. My chest tightens as I tell him that, quieter than I mean to.
Jeff goes still. “That makes me sad,” he murmurs, hearing the catch in my voice. “Come here. I want to give you a hug.”
He doesn’t wait long before his arms are around me, and I let them be, needing comfort more than I care to admit. Sometimes I just want someone to hold me. To console me as I face those pieces of my past. The ones buried deep inside me. Memories I’ve kept hidden out of pain.
Since Reginald, I’ve gotten good at being alone with things. Sitting with the ache, letting it pass, finding reasons to keep going. But right now, in Jeff’s arms, I’m not alone. I let myself sink into the feeling, a moment of comfort I’ve been missing, and for tonight, being held is enough.
This post is part of a fictionalized memoir. The emotional experiences and themes are drawn from my life, but all names, identities, timelines, and circumstances have been altered, obscured, or combined to protect privacy — including my own. These writings are not meant to diagnose, label, or describe any real person. Instead, they illuminate relational patterns that can occur in emotionally imbalanced or narcissistic dynamics. Any resemblance to actual individuals is coincidental or intentionally obscured. The intention is healing and awareness, not identification. These posts are for storytelling purposes only and do not constitute professional advice.
The images woven through My Journey and The Lessons are my own photographs — moments I captured on trails, in forests, beside rivers, and under open sky. They are pieces of my story and are not to be copied or used without permission.
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