This evening has me unsettled. It’s not just the bowling alley incident. I’m used to freaking out in public. There’s something extra happening where I’m freaking out in front of a woman I like, and she’s totally fine with it. And I don’t know what to make of any of it.
With only a few hours left before my alarm sounds for my workday, I lie back in my bed, listening to the air conditioner, petting my dog. I don’t know if I fall asleep, but I enter this deeply relaxed state where I’m watching scenes from my life unfold. Every time I freaked out at the movies and shuffled out, sometimes leaving a date behind, ghosting her out of embarrassment.
Every time I couldn’t handle the cafeteria in high school and ate my packed lunch in the loading dock, hoping I’d be able to sneak back through the custodians’ door before the bell.
And tonight, when I was on the verge of sprinting from that bowling alley, but instead of rolling her eyes and calling me weird, Eila touched my arm with just the right amount of pressure and walked me outside.
My therapist is encouraging me to note these moments, these habits, these responses so we can start to work out a plan of interventions. It’s so incredible to me that there might be a stable of tools and strategies to make these aspects of my life more manageable. What’s even more incredible is the way that Eila Storm seems to know the secrets.
I pour myself an extra mug of coffee in the morning and head downtown for a team meeting before I plan to drop Eila’s paperwork directly into the hands of the director for the vacant lot program. Of course, when I reach that floor, I learn the director has taken another job in the private sector, and there are a bunch of frustrated city planning employees shuffling around that workload.
I frown. This isn’t an unusual thing. But now it’s impacting someone I care about, and I feel deeply conflicted knowing I could bend rules and make calls … but once I cross that line I fear—no, I know I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I’d spiral. Where does it end… if I break rules for Eila? No, better to hand her paperwork to one of the interns and watch it disappear into a stack, like all the other people applying for the same programs, with the same hopes and the same dreams as Eila Storm.
Except there is no one like Eila. There is no one who sees me uncomfortable and suggests alternatives. I stare at the overflowing inbox on the intern’s desk until she looks up from her computer and lifts one ear of her headphones. “What’s up?”
I cough and shift my weight. “I have an application for the lot program. But I guess Meryl left…”
The woman nods and rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Is it someone you know? I can process it after this press release.” She looks at the papers. “Oh, this is a short one. Here.” She pulls a stamp from her drawer and flips open a red ink pad. Before I can point out that she hasn’t read the application, she inks a bright APPROVED on the top of the page. “Do me a favor and hand that to Naomi? She’ll take it from there.”
I back away from the desk with the paper, blinking and nodding, hoping Naomi is somehow related to lead testing.
There’s no way it can be this easy for Eila to move ahead with her vision. I work for and in the system, and I know how long everything takes even with someone shepherding the paperwork along. But I realize, as I tuck the forms to the back of my clipboard, that I feel no anxiety about doing this favor for Eila. I consult the staff directory and make my way to Naomi’s office, where I find a woman seated at an ancient desk, nearly hidden by a towering stack of boxes marked LEAD TEST: SOIL and LEAD TEST: WATER.
I clear my throat to announce my presence and hear the rattling voice of a seasoned smoker say, “Yeah? Who’s there?”
“Yes. Hi. I’m Ben Barber from city inspections. I’ve got a lot adoption form approved to move to lead testing…”
“Soil or water? Actually, you know what? Take one of each. Instructions are inside.”
A wrinkled hand nudges the top box from each tower, falling into my hands as Naomi spins around in her chair to answer the phone on her desk.