The Things We Almost Miss

It was one of the last few nights of our seven-day cruise, and we couldn't decide what to do. My husband wanted to see a show. My friend wanted to meet for drinks. I was somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out how to make both work.

Eventually, we landed on what seemed like a reasonable compromise. We'd meet our friends for drinks in one of the open lounges where a pianist was playing.

Perfect.

We found a sitting area large enough for all of us to be comfortable but small enough that we could still hear each other over the music. We ordered drinks, toasted friendship and new adventures, and settled in.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the evening. We talked about everything and nothing at the same time, the way you do with people you don't have to entertain.

The pianist played in the background.

Then my husband made a comment about the music. By this point, the pianist had started singing. He played beautifully. The singing changed things. The tempo had slowed considerably, and a familiar song had become something entirely different.

My husband's observation was honest, and funny.

Unfortunately, once he pointed it out, the rest of us couldn't stop hearing it. Suddenly we were all paying attention.

Painful attention.

We giggled.

Then the pianist attempted an upbeat Billy Joel song that, in my opinion, has no business being played at any speed other than the one Billy Joel intended. That did not help. Now every song had our attention.

We were analyzing tempos. Recognizing songs several measures later than we probably should have. Looking at each other whenever another familiar song wandered off in an unexpected direction.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I started talking about chocolate martinis. I wanted one. Our waiter told me they weren't on the menu, but he'd make me one.

Yay!

A little while later, he returned carrying what looked like a masterpiece.

It was beautiful.

A chocolate martini topped with foam, with three perfect chocolate hearts drawn one above the other. I admired it. I probably admired it longer than necessary. Then my friend, who was sitting directly across from me, reached over without saying anything and turned my glass 180 degrees.

I looked down.

Apparently masterpieces depend heavily on perspective.

From her side of the table, my three beautiful chocolate hearts looked remarkably like three butts.

I stared at them. Then at her. Then back at my drink.

There really wasn't much to say.  So I picked up my glass and toasted the table.

"To my chocolate butts."

That was it. The table erupted. Not a polite chuckle.  Not the little laugh you give someone because they've said something mildly amusing. The kind of laughter that takes over your entire body. Someone would begin to recover, look at the drink again, and we'd lose it.

We were crying. Rolling around in our seats trying to breathe.

The strange versions of familiar songs continued in the background while six grown adults completely lost control over three chocolate hearts that looked like butts.

It was ridiculous.

It was perfect.

Later that night, as my husband and I walked back toward our cabin, I was still smiling. Only a few hours earlier, I'd been debating what we should do that evening. The show? Drinks? Which would be more fun? Which should we choose?

It had seemed important enough at the time to require discussion but in that moment, I found myself thinking about what would have happened if we'd chosen differently.

We probably would have enjoyed the show. Our friends would have had their drinks. Everyone would have had a perfectly nice evening.

We simply would never have known what we'd missed.

That's the strange thing about some of the best moments of our lives. They don't announce themselves. They aren't necessarily the things we planned months in advance or paid the most money to experience. Sometimes they're hiding inside an ordinary evening when nothing particularly important is supposed to happen.

A comfortable chair. Friends around a table. A familiar song played at a very unfamiliar speed. A waiter kind enough to make something that wasn't on the menu. Three chocolate hearts viewed from the wrong direction.

Laughter so pure that everyone at the table is crying.

I couldn't have planned that night if I'd tried. I almost chose something else. Maybe that's why I keep thinking about it.

There are moments we know we're going to remember while we're living them. Then there are the ones that quietly become memories before we realize anything important is happening.

Hours earlier, I had been trying to decide how we should spend our evening. By the end of it, I had my answer. Sitting in a lounge with people I love, laughing until I couldn't breathe over a glass decorated with three chocolate butts.

I can't believe I almost missed it.

I Thought Being Good at Something Meant I Should Keep Doing It

I've said some version of this sentence for most of my life.

I'm good at it.

That doesn't mean I like doing it. The strange part is that I kept doing it anyway.

I was a great negotiator long before I knew that's what I was doing.

As a child, I thought I was simply good at smoothing things over. Between friends. Between my siblings. Between people who couldn't quite figure out how to get from what they wanted to something everyone could live with.

Somehow, I became the person people turned to. That followed me into adulthood. Holidays were a perfect example.

Everyone had an opinion. Who would host?  Where would we go? What would we do? My kids wanted one thing. My sister and her family wanted something else. Me? I usually wanted something considerably simpler than anything being suggested.

Somehow I became the negotiator. Thanksgiving at my house. Christmas at yours. We'll go to this restaurant this time. I'll cook for everyone next time.

There.

Solved.

Everyone was happy.

Or happy enough.

Which, when you're negotiating family holidays, is probably the closest anyone gets to a unanimous victory.

I was good at it. So I did it.

At work, the stakes became considerably higher. There was a conflict once between a customer and a salesperson. My boss was telling me what was happening, and I suggested something they might try. He looked at me.

"I don't know if they tried that. Call them and see if you can help."

Sure.

I called. I helped. The problem got resolved.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, I had apparently auditioned for a job I didn't know existed. The next time there was a difficult conflict, I got called. Then another. And another.

Somewhere along the way, I became the person you called when something was broken. Not literally broken. People broken. Relationships broken. Customers angry. Teams  disagreeing. Situations escalating.

I hadn't created any of these problems, but somehow I was expected to walk into the middle of them and find the exit.

And I did.

I was good at it.

I also hated it.

I tried explaining this to my boss once. I told him I really didn't like being called in for all the "emergencies." Surely there was someone else he could call. He looked at me like I had started speaking a foreign language.

Ironically, English wasn't his native language, so we'd actually had those moments before. This wasn't one of them.

Then I saw his eye twitch. I knew that twitch.

What I had just said did not compute.

"No one can do what you can. You're such a natural. It doesn't even take any effort from you. Why would you ask me that?"

I couldn't tell whether he was offended or genuinely confused. Probably a little of both.

What I remember most, though, is that sentence. It doesn't even take any effort from you.

Except it did.

He saw what happened once I entered the room. He didn't see my stomach in knots before I got there. He didn't feel the weight I carried knowing I was walking into a conflict between people I sometimes didn't even know, with an expectation that I would somehow make everything okay.

He didn't experience the dread before those meetings. He saw the smile.  He saw the calm. He saw the conflict settle. He saw the outcome. My reputation had started entering rooms before I did.

I became known for being very good at this.

So I kept doing it.

That's the strange thing about being good at something. People notice. Then they ask you to do it again. And when you do it well, they ask more often. Over time, your ability becomes your role. Then your role becomes an expectation.

Somewhere in there, nobody remembers to ask whether you actually enjoy it. Sometimes not even you.

For years, I confused being capable of something with being responsible for it. If I could fix it, I should. If I could make something easier, I should. If I could get everyone to the other side, why wouldn't I?

I had an answer for that question long before I was willing to listen to it.

Because I didn't want to.

That didn't seem like a good enough reason.

Then the company I worked for was sold. My boss announced his retirement. I knew what came next. New ownership. New shareholders. New expectations. New rules. New relationships to navigate. New games to learn.

I'd been through enough change in my career to know I could do it again. I could survive another acquisition. I could learn the new players. I could read the room. I could negotiate. I could solve the problems. I could keep succeeding.

For the first time, that wasn't enough.

I knew I could do it.

I simply didn't want to anymore.

There wasn't some spectacular breaking point. I just saw what was coming so clearly that it made me sad. I knew the game. I knew how to play it. I was good at it. I no longer wanted to.

Surely there was something more interesting I could do with my life.

Something that made me feel like I was contributing to the world in a way I actually wanted to contribute.

So I left.

Something funny has happened since then. I'm still good at resolving conflict. I just don't automatically assume that makes the conflict mine. When disagreement breaks out around me now, I have learned to step back.

Sometimes I ask the people involved to find a solution they can both live with. When my grandchildren fight, I've developed an even better strategy. I offer one truly horrible solution that neither of them will like. Then I suggest they come up with something better.

And I leave.

It's beautiful.

Turns out people are remarkably capable of solving their own problems when the person who usually solves them stops volunteering.

Meanwhile, I've been learning something I'm not nearly as comfortable doing.

Writing.

I thought I was a pretty good writer until I entered the publishing world. That was humbling. Apparently repeated revisions are not an elaborate prank played on new authors. They're real. They're frustrating.

Sometimes I write something I love and discover it needs to be pulled apart and put back together. Sometimes I stare at one sentence far longer than any reasonable person should.

I love writing.

Not every minute.

But I love the challenge.

I love writing about ordinary moments and discovering something inside them I hadn't noticed before. I'm still learning. Still getting things wrong. Still figuring out what works.

There's something wonderfully different about being a beginner at something I chose instead of an expert at something everyone expected me to do.

Maybe that's what took me so long to understand. Being good at something and enjoying it are not the same thing. Neither is being good at something and choosing it.

I'm good at this.

I enjoy this.

I choose this.

Those are three different sentences.

For a very long time, I treated them as though they meant the same thing.

They don't.

Being capable of carrying something doesn't mean it belongs to you. Sometimes the thing you're exceptionally good at is simply something you learned how to do exceptionally well.

You are still allowed to put it down.

I spent years being the person people called when something needed fixing. I'm still capable of fixing things. These days, I'm simply a little more interested in asking whether they're mine to fix.

And sometimes, wonderfully, the answer is no.

Joy Travels

It was a normal Tuesday.

I was driving to meet my daughter, running errands and mentally moving through the things I still needed to get done that day when my sister called. She was laughing before she really got started.

"You'll never guess who I saw!"

She had been at an event honoring a community member who had donated much-needed supplies to local first responders. As the event ended and the small crowd of about twenty people slowly began filing out, someone across the room noticed her.

An old friend of mine.

He crossed the room, called my sister by name and wrapped her in a huge hug. Not the obligatory kind. The kind that lingers just long enough for you to know someone is genuinely happy to see you.

He asked about me.

How was I?

What was I doing?

Please tell her I said hi.

My sister was still excited as she told me about it. Laughing. Proud. Happy to have been remembered and greeted so warmly. I could hear the joy in her voice.

This friend and I had spent eight years working together on the planning committee for the largest charity event our foundation held each year. It required months of preparation. Weekly meetings. Emails. Phone calls. Text messages. Long days that became even longer nights when the weekend of the event finally arrived.

Somewhere in all that chaos, we became each other's support system.

We leaned on each other during the quiet moments when one of us needed to step away and catch our breath. We laughed at the ridiculous things that inevitably happened. At the end of each year, we celebrated another successful event, another goal exceeded, another reminder of why we'd put ourselves through all of it again.

Then life did what life does.

I moved to another state for work.

There was no falling out. No argument. No moment when either of us decided the friendship was over. Our lives simply went in different directions.

I hadn't seen him in a long time. But hearing that he'd crossed a room to hug my sister and ask about me felt good.

It's nice to be thought of.

It's even nicer when someone carries that thought back to you. There was another part of the story that stayed with me, though.

My sister.

She's the person behind the scenes everywhere.

If there's a community event, she's probably helping. A charity needs volunteers, she's there. Something needs to be organized, supported, carried, set up, cleaned up or simply cared about, somehow she finds her way into it.

She doesn't do it for recognition. She does it because she genuinely wants her community to be better. I volunteer. She runs circles around me and just about everyone else.

I've always loved that about her.

There was something particularly fitting about her standing in that room, at an event celebrating someone else's generosity, and having this small moment of her own. Someone saw her. Someone remembered her. Someone was genuinely happy to see her.

And she called me because it made her happy.

When we hung up, I kept driving. I had things to do. Appointments. Errands. A meeting with my daughter. The usual list waiting for me.

A few minutes later, I realized I had a silly smirk on my face. I was still sitting in the moment. I found myself thinking about my friend and the time we had spent together. I was touched that he'd remembered me. I was proud of my sister. I was happy that she'd had this unexpected moment.

Mostly, I was happy about her happiness.

A few minutes later, I met my daughter. I told her about the call. She smiled warmly. Later, when I got home, I told my husband all about it as well.

Somewhere along the way I realized what had happened.

The joy had traveled.

It started with a man crossing a room. He gave some of it to my sister. She gave some to me. I gave some to my daughter. Then I carried it home and gave some to my husband.

The moment could have ended in that room. It could have ended when my sister hung up. A different version of me probably would have let it. I would have smiled, thanked her for calling, and moved immediately to the next ten things on my list.

I was busy that Tuesday too.

The difference was that this time, I noticed. I let myself sit with something that didn't require anything from me. There was nothing to fix. Nothing to accomplish. Nothing to plan. Just something good. And instead of accepting it and moving on, I passed it along.

It made me think about the things that travel between people. Stress travels.  Fear travels. Anger travels. One person's terrible day can find its way into a room full of people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Then I realized, apparently joy knows how to travel too. We just don't talk about its journey as often.

I'm glad my old friend remembered me. I'm glad he crossed the room. I'm glad my sister was there. I'm glad she called. I'm glad I noticed the joy in her voice. But mostly, I'm glad it didn't stop with me.

Nothing extraordinary happened that Tuesday. Maybe that's what made it extraordinary.

Joy traveled.

This time, I noticed.

The Strange Loneliness of Becoming Someone New

When I was a child, I spent most of my time on the outskirts of rooms. Quietly watching. Listening. Trying to understand people.

I wanted to know what made someone accepted. What made someone rejected. Why one person could walk into a room and instantly belong while someone else faded into the background. I didn't have the words for it then, but I was studying.

As I grew older, I put everything I had observed to work. I learned to walk into a room with confidence. I learned that a smile opens more doors than people realize, and I had one that could light up a room.

Was it arrogance?

Maybe.

Was it genuine?

Absolutely.

Was it who I really was… or who I had learned to become?

I honestly don’t know.

I built a career I was proud of. I climbed the corporate ladder. I led incredible teams. I solved problems. I earned respect. From the outside, it looked exactly like the life I had worked so hard to build.

Then one day I realized something I hadn't expected.

I wasn't happy anymore.

Not because the work had changed. Because I had.

The politics that once felt like part of the job began to feel exhausting. The games people played became impossible to ignore. I could see the alliances forming before they happened. I could predict the conversations before they started.

The strange part wasn't that those games existed. It was realizing how good I had become at playing them. Somewhere along the way, I had become fluent in a language I never actually wanted to speak.

Looking back, I realize I never stopped watching people. I simply became one of them. Somewhere between promotions, deadlines, and performance reviews, the observer quietly stepped back into the shadows.

Instead of asking why everyone behaved the way they did... I became very good at behaving the way everyone expected. I didn't notice the change until years later.

Then, I walked away.

For the first time in decades, I wasn't introducing myself by my title. I started writing instead. Not because I wanted to become an author. Because there were things I had spent a lifetime experiencing that nobody seemed willing to say out loud.

Writing felt honest. It felt quieter. It felt like coming home to someone I hadn't seen in a very long time.

A few months later, I was standing in my kitchen when my phone rang.

It was one of my dearest friends. I leaned against the counter, coffee growing cold beside me, and smiled before I even answered.

She's one of the most positive people I know. The kind of person whose smile reaches you before her words do. We caught up on life. She asked how the writing was going, how I was feeling, what I was doing for myself.

The questions were harder to answer than I expected. Then she mentioned some gossip from my old workplace. New people. New drama. New conflicts.

I listened. Then a thought crossed my mind.

Nothing has changed.

The players were different. The story wasn't. Different names. Same script.

A second thought followed almost immediately.

How did I survive there for so long?

People often say it's lonely at the top. I don't think that's quite right. Yes, leadership can be isolating. Boundaries matter. Difficult decisions come with the job. But that's not the loneliness that surprised me.

The real loneliness came afterward.

It arrived when I looked honestly at the life I had built, defended, and protected and realized how little of myself had actually been living inside it. You become so good at surviving an environment that you stop noticing how much of yourself survival requires.

              You say the right things. You anticipate everyone's needs. You smooth over conflict before it grows. You become the reliable one. The capable one. The one who can walk into any room and figure out exactly who everyone needs you to be.

People praise you for it. Sometimes you even praise yourself. Until one day you realize you've become an expert at reading everyone else while quietly losing sight of yourself.

Leaving the job wasn't the hardest part.

Becoming someone new was.

Because your new boundaries don't look like your old ones. Your peace isn't as negotiable. Your time isn't as available. Your worth no longer depends on how much of yourself you're willing to hand away.

Some people celebrate that version of you. Others don't quite know what to do with her. Not because you've become unkind. Because you've become unfamiliar. The version of you they knew fit comfortably into the role you played.

The version you're becoming writes a different script.

When I hung up the phone that day, I realized something had changed. The conversation that once would have pulled me back into that world had become something I simply observed through the window.

I understood it. I recognized it. I no longer belonged inside it.

That realization was both comforting and unexpectedly lonely. Not because I wanted my old life back. I didn't. But because becoming someone new means saying goodbye to more than jobs and relationships.

Sometimes you have to say goodbye to the version of yourself who knew exactly how to survive there.

She isn't someone I regret.

She got me here.

She worked incredibly hard with the tools she had.

I'm grateful for her.

I just don't need her to lead anymore.

If you've been feeling strangely lonely lately, maybe it isn't because you've lost your place. Maybe you're standing in the quiet space between who you needed to be and who you're becoming.

It's an uncomfortable place. It asks different questions. It changes old conversations. It reshapes relationships. Sometimes it feels emptier than you expected. But every now and then you'll have a conversation that reminds you just how far you've come.

You'll realize the world you once fought so hard to belong to is still spinning exactly as it always has.

The players changed.

The script didn't.

You did.