The alarm rang at 5:15 a.m., but he had been restless for two hours, constantly jolting himself awake in a panicked state, thinking he'd missed his flight. He could never sleep before an early flight. He'd never missed one, but that didn't stop the anxiety.
He lay in bed for a few minutes, feeling the heaviness on his eyes. He had done these business trips dozens, maybe hundreds, of times, but for some reason this one felt harder. Maybe it was the fact that he was about to turn 40. Maybe it was because this client had rescheduled this meeting twice. Maybe it was the fight he and Sabina had had last night. What was the fight about anyway? He had instigated it – but why? Maybe Sabina's suggestion that “whatever this is about – you being pissed off – has nothing to do with me” was right.
Maybe it was the last thing he'd seen on Facebook before he'd gone to sleep: his old business school friend Amit celebrating the sale of the company that he had started eight years ago. At the time he'd thought Amit was foolish leaving a safe and prosperous consulting job to launch the new venture. He looked at the photos and the 648 comments that followed of Amit celebrating alongside his wife and what looked like a dozen or so of the company leaders toasting, laughing. I wonder how much money they each now have? Matt couldn't help but lay in bed doing math in his head. The fact that the company was in health care IT, which was something he knew nothing about, and cared even less about, didn't matter. This wasn't his dream – but that fact didn't numb the pain of seeing it broadcast on Facebook.
He felt like a chump. What would be his obituary if he were to disappear today? “Matt Carney. 39. He played it safe, was sometimes more of an arrogant jerk than was necessary, paid off his mortgage and left no trail. His friends mostly liked him. He took good vacations (and lots of pictures to prove it) and had a clean story on LinkedIn. He served his country in the U.S. Army for 10 years. That mattered, and for that we are grateful.”
Enough, he told himself, rolling out of bed, careful not to wake Sabina – he'd been painful enough – and shuffled into the bathroom. He looked in the mirror. His eyes were heavy, still blue, but carrying a heaviness that lived somewhere between 30 and 50 years old. He didn't look at himself all that often – what was the point. In this moment seeing his age, his fatigue, he couldn't help but feel disappointed in himself. Life was once on the horizon, and this morning felt like it was shifting to the rearview mirror.
Enough, he told himself, for the second time this morning. You're fine and your life is fine. The self-talk rang hollow, if not judgmental.
He turned on the shower, grabbed the Dove combination shampoo and conditioner he'd been faithfully using for 10 years, though not out of any brand loyalty, and began to do the mental math on when he needed the Lyft to show up: about 30 minutes to the airport. Arrive 15 minutes before boarding starts. TSA pre-check should take 10 minutes. Coffee inside the terminal. Boarding. Take off at 7:50 a.m., land in Cincinnati at 9:00 a.m., and be at the client by 9:30 a.m. He had done the time/distance on this trip a hundred times, but that didn't stop him from doing it again.
He showered, shaved, put his suit on, and gathered his things to leave, stopping for a moment to look at Sabina lying there in bed, unaware of the emotional journey her husband had taken in the 35 minutes since waking up, unaware also of how often he felt plagued by this void of not feeling that his life mattered, that he had some larger purpose, or that he had ever honored his dreams.
That he had at one point in his life felt just the opposite and full of purpose seemed to accentuate the pain. Sergeant Carney, the decorated Army Ranger with three deployments under his belt, could not have been a more different person than Matt Carney, the middle-aged sales guy living in a typical middle-aged life. Callsign “Carnie” was 6'2”, full of lean muscle, and constantly getting in better shape, and was beloved by the men and women he led. His one firefight in Fallujah in which he brought all of his guys home while sustaining fire had earned him accolades, some ribbons, and an early promotion to E-6. He had watched as the men and women whom he saw as heroes forward deployed also returned to lives back CONUS that seemed less than heroic. Their fate mirrored his and was equally as disorienting to witness. He knew how great they could be and how great they in fact were – recognition unseen in an array of their present-day LinkedIn profiles.
That he knew what it felt to be living fully engaged, in uniform, serving a mission, and doing it alongside people whom you loved made this present-day predicament all the more painful. Had I never felt the highs…, he often thought, he may not be feeling this present day low. Maybe the Army had spoiled him – setting him up for a future life full of underwhelm. Where do you go after near-death experiences serving your country in a firefight in Fallujah? What made it all the more painful was the deluge of comments from people welcoming him home and expressing relief that he could finally put that chapter behind him. He didn't want that chapter behind him. In fact, had he not met Sabina he might have just stayed in. At least in the Army, he thought to himself, you belonged, you made sense, and your life had a purpose in service toward something larger. Even for all of the dysfunction at times, at least it was a dysfunction where I knew the people and they knew me, and we could make fun of the insanity of it all. More than anything, what he missed was that feeling of belonging and that he mattered. The welcome home hugs from civilians who could not appreciate the daily void that was his new life.
Matt thumbed through his closet, picked out a blazer, and pulled down a blue non-iron shirt. Sabina always joked about his “uniform” – some version of a blazer, non-iron dress shirt, and jeans or pants. Four of each, Matt argued, made for almost 50 original versions of essentially the same outfit. He glanced in the mirror, typical, he thought to himself, and then over at Sabina who lay still on her side – the morning light beginning to break through the window.
Sabina always had a more coherent approach to her career and life. It's as if she just knew instinctively what she was on this earth to do and her career followed suit accordingly. On their first date in DC, she emanated this contentment that for Matt, stationed at the Pentagon and anticipating a deployment, seemed so foreign and so comforting. She was curious, ordered the salad, was fine with just one glass of wine, and sat curious about Matt's decision to join the Army – and seemed simply at ease with herself, her life, her own self-control. They would later joke that this first date was as much a therapy session for Matt, who did most of the talking. It wasn't until they had talked exhaustively about Matt that he even learned she was studying at American University to be a clinical psychologist. How apropos. Sabina didn't mind this listening session – what would in turn be the first of many.
Their life together, first when dating and later when married, would follow this pattern. Sabina, the preternaturally calm one, quietly moving on her path, in some ways a mystery to Matt for her career ambition or what he might have perceived as a lack of one. And Matt, the notable one, with deployments, stories, dramatic twists and turns, but more than anything the living anxiety of how to construct his life for whatever might lie ahead. These gut-level anxieties seemed to just wash past her – he carried enough for the both of them.
Blazer on, Matt paused to look at her in bed. She hadn't aged. Still a side sleeper, he observed. Her eyes didn't carry the anxiety, and she showed no signs of this existential crisis that Matt seemed to carry with him each morning. It all seemed so easy for her. She would wake up in 30 minutes, have a predictable healthy breakfast, one coffee, and proceed to her office to see patients. She never seemed to struggle with some existential crisis about her identity. Why did his desire to do something, be something, achieve something, occupy such a disproportionate place in his mind?
He looked at her and smiled a pained smile, both for how lucky he was to have her in his life and for how much he hated himself sometimes. He slipped out of the bedroom, called the Lyft, poured a cup of coffee to go, which he had dutifully set the night before, and walked down the front steps of their vintage townhouse to wait on the street corner.