My phone vibrates on the nightstand, and I reach for it. “My quote of the day from my current book.” A text from Jeff arrives as I linger in bed, sunlight pooling on the sheets. “‘We inflate ourselves with a false confidence to make bad feelings go away.’ I want to take out any false confidence.”
The word—authenticity—drifts up from the text and hangs in the space above my head. I’ve spent years circling it, reading about it, dissecting it in therapy, but the moment I think I’m living it, some old reflex kicks in and I’m performing again. The habits of hiding are so old, they feel like my own skin.
Out of instinct, I open the Bible app. “So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor.” Today’s verse is about humility—something I believed in before I understood what it cost. I was raised on the art of making myself small so others could shine. My parents modeled it, though not always with grace, and my marriage demanded it in ways that stunted me.
Now, I crave the kind of quiet that has nothing to prove. The kind that doesn’t even need to be seen.
I send Jeff my verse, along with my own riff on authenticity and humility. The best part of being at this age is knowing I don’t need to explain myself to anyone. Maybe accepting ourselves, flaws and all, is its own kind of spiritual growth. My words seem to land, and he responds right away, saying he’s leaning into the Sabbath by focusing on rest and presence. “Being instead of doing,” he says.
I text back, “I like ‘being’ over ‘doing’ on Sundays. Peace in the presence. It’s a day of rest that I’m going to enjoy.” I mean it, at least for a few hours, before the laundry and the list of chores press in. But for that window, I let the quiet reach me. It’s almost enough.
Monday dawns, and Jeff’s message is waiting before I even drink my coffee. “Assignment for today—learn one thing and report back by end of day.”
He’s deep into his book now, quoting at me like a seminar. I admire it, though. It means he’s willing to think, to change, to use new knowledge for something other than self-protection.
He sends another quote. “To the degree that we are unable to express our emotions, we remain impaired in our ability to love God, others, and ourselves well.” The “ourselves,” part lands with a hollow thud. I tell him so, and he replies, “I love learning about this stuff. So rewarding.”
I tease him for being such a good student, admit I’m nervous about my assignment. He comes back with, “Are you already casting doubt on the likelihood of success in order to lessen the future impact of failure????”
All those question marks—a joke, but also a dare in the way he frames them. Though he’s not wrong. I’ve spent decades bracing for disappointment, building conditions into every hope just in case it falls apart.
Except failure isn’t on my mind today. I reply, “It’s all about winning.”
“You’re fun,” he returns.
I let myself believe that. For the first time in a long time, I’m not performing, just being. I can just be fun, or quiet, or uncertain, or whatever I am in the moment.
By late afternoon, my assignment is ready, and I text him. “It’s the importance of a pause—to take a breath before speaking. Like the breath of life that God gave us. To have the Holy Spirit within us for self-control. It’s a gift to speak with God’s presence in responding and not reacting, especially during conflict. Jesus modeled this so well in the Gospels.”
Jeff responds minutes later. “Good stuff. I wasn’t able to do this type of learning with Melissa. Were you able to do this with Reginald?”
My fingers hesitate. The answer is simple, yet the ache behind it remains an untangleable knot. Every meaningful conversation with Reginald became a duel, a contest of logic or insight that neither of us could bear to lose. Our wounds shaped every exchange. What I miss isn’t the connection, but the illusion that we ever had one.
“Reg and I stopped having meaningful discussions a long time ago,” I finally send. “Now it’s just everyday stuff.”
“I get it,” Jeff answers. “Melissa lacked the emotional maturity to go past surface-level understanding.”
The rawness of his words startles me. I see Melissa, but I also see myself. With Reginald, every argument was proof that I mattered, that I could take up space. Only later did I realize that the need to win just makes the other person smaller, distant. It’s just another way of losing. The grief is so sharp, I can barely breathe through it.
“It’s hard knowing that someone you love couldn’t grow with you,” I respond. “Or even try to meet you where you are. It’s a lonely feeling.”
The silence that follows is so complete that I can hear the blood moving in my ears. Maybe he’s busy. Maybe he’s thinking. Either way, I don’t mind. The pause feels like a relief, a small kindness to myself.
A few hours later, I prod him about my assignment. “You didn’t give me a grade. Do I get an AAA+++?” I type with a bit of dramatic flair.
He responds, “AAA+++ isn’t even a thing!! I have an idea. We’ll talk on Friday. But I’m glad we can laugh, challenge each other, hang out, and have fun together. You’re a rock star.”
The rock star compliment makes me smile. He never gives me a grade, but I don’t need one. The lightness is enough. For once, I let myself enjoy it, no strings attached. Laughter is rare enough these days to feel like a win. I’ll take it.
A few days have passed when I mention my morning stretching routine before work. “Yoga?” Jeff says. He claims that he travels with a yoga mat, which surprises me. He has the energy of someone who can’t sit still, who needs to fill every silence with movement or sound or purpose. Maybe there’s more to him than I see.
He’s not surprised I do yoga, that I seem nimble. “Probably flexible too,” he comments.
I can’t tell if it’s a compliment or a test. Flexibility is just a job requirement, a way to keep from wrenching my back when I help patients or haul equipment around the clinic.
He plays along, joking that if he tries to stretch and hold the positions with me, he’d probably topple over. Or, more likely, fart, a detail he finds hilarious. His humor is juvenile, but it’s also disarming. It makes me laugh in a way that feels unedited, a sound I haven’t heard from myself in months.
We banter about what men are supposed to wear to yoga. Telling me he’s going to Google it, wants to look legit when we practice together. I tell him athletic shorts and a t-shirt are fine, but he insists on searching for male yogis in coordinated gear: tank tops, compression pants, the works. He wants to get it right, or at least he wants to impress me with the effort.
We settle on a day for yoga in the park. Before we even get there, Jeff announces he needs a new mat. His old mats have migrated into his sons’ rooms. I’m briefly thrown by the idea of teenage boys doing yoga, though I decide not to question it. Maybe, unlike my own kids, his sons are open to their dad’s quirks.
Instead, I tell him about my own mat situation—how my favorite purple one vanished, and I’ve been using Reginald’s. The memory lands with a familiar ache: Reginald, fresh from his Arizona retreat, ordering the mat for us to use together. It sat in its box for months, another earnest intention that never became an action. I shake off the thought. I don’t tell Jeff any of this, just say, “I’m using Reginald’s mat, since it’s basically brand new.”
Jeff doesn’t miss a beat. “Would you like a new pretty one???” he messages, triple question marks and all. The wording makes me pause. Pretty. There’s a performative sweetness to it that tugs at something skeptical in me. I reply that I’m fine with what I have.
He gives my answer a thumbs down, then sends a link. “Let’s get nice, new yoga mats!”
The link opens to a rainbow of options. I can’t help but linger on the purple mat, a near-perfect match to the one that disappeared. I hesitate, yet the familiar color stirs something tender and unguarded. “Yoga mats in different colors. I like the purple one!”
“Slate or olive green? Which one do you like the most?” he asks.
I weigh the colors, as if my answer will reveal something fundamental. Olive feels grounding, like the color of moss after rain. “Olive,” I type.
“When is your birthday?” he inquires.
I narrow my eyes at the screen. The logic is obvious, but I’m wary. This is the kind of gesture that sets off small, hidden alarms. Still, I answer, “October 1.”
“I’d like to give you the purple one as an early birthday present,” he offers. “But it has one condition. You need to help me get better at yoga on our new mats. Deal?”
A nervous energy wells up in my chest. I don’t want him to buy me things, don’t want to owe anyone. It feels too much like the orchestrated generosity I learned to accept in my marriage. Then I remember what he said about kindness giving him purpose, and I tell myself it’s not about the mat. So I let myself relax, just a little. “Thank you so much,” I reply. “And you’re probably more capable of yoga than you give yourself credit for.”
Within minutes, he confirms the order. “It’s going to be fun. They’re ordered.” He attaches a screenshot, like a receipt of his sincerity.
It’s a sweet gesture, yet the intensity of it tugs at the edges of my anxiety. The dinners, and now this. It’s so much, so soon. Still, I respond with, “Namaste.”
“I had to google Namaste,” he writes back.
That surprises me. The word is the universal sign-off for yoga that closes each practice. It means I bow to the divine in you. I wonder if Jeff ever really pays attention to the endings of things, or if he just powers through to the next item on his list. I feel a rift open up, a flicker of doubt. Maybe all his spiritual talk is just another performance, another way to be what he thinks I want.
“The light in me honors the light in you,” I text, closing the loop on our conversation.
For a few days, the routine is predictable: daily check-ins, phone calls, and nightly FaceTimes. Each night, Jeff prays for me and my family, before he and his own. These prayers soothe something raw in me, and the comfort they offer is undeniable. It’s grounding, almost addictive, how his words wrap around the day and tuck me in. I wonder if I’m leaning on him too much. The way comfort can easily morph into need, then expectation.
Then I wonder, again, if I am repeating a cycle I swore I’d break.
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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