The Part Where Someone Else Knew

Here's what I didn't account for: at some point, you have to tell an actual person.

I've been sitting with this application, submitted, done, out of my hands, for weeks now. The waiting is its own kind of quiet. I check my email probably more than I should, and then I feel superstitious about checking it too much, like I'll scare the answer away. But the application asked for two references, and I listed names, which means at some point those names have to know I listed them. So this morning I went to the rec center. Not to run, well, I did run, because it's Tuesday and that's what Tuesdays are, but also because I'd been putting off a conversation with one of the staff there, someone who knows me from the morning club, who I thought might actually agree to be a reference if I just asked. The whole drive over I was rehearsing it in my head, which is embarrassing to admit, but it's true. I had a whole little speech. I barely used any of it.

She said yes before I'd even finished explaining. Asked a few questions, what program, when, what would I be doing, and I answered them, and somewhere in the middle of answering I realized I was describing the gap year like it was real. Because it is real. It's been real since I pressed submit, but this was different. This was real inside someone else's face, inside a conversation that happened in a fluorescent-lit hallway next to a bulletin board. That's a different kind of real than the blog, or the notes app, or the notebook page with the deadline written in pen. This version has a witness.

right after. still a little stunned.

I came home and sat at my desk for a while. Wrote some things down that weren't for the blog, just for me, which I'm trying to do more of lately. The money ledger is still open in my notes app with that number in it, the one that feels accusatory every time I look at it. I haven't solved that yet. But today felt like a small thing that was actually a big thing, and I wanted to mark it somewhere. So here we are.

the notebook that knows everything.