===ugh, another one without pretty pictures. Still looking for new ways to keep GITJ visually rich without the tools we'd wanted to keep using===
Melissa Entry 5 — Late afternoon
After the Channel 5 interview I didn’t go right back to the office. I texted Randi that I needed a little time to decompress, and she gave me a thumbs up. From her that means of course you do, like it’s not even a question. I drove here instead. The coffee shop, the one Jay and I came to that first week, for our first coffee date (he would have called it a meeting) when everything still felt…ugh what’s the word? Tentative. When it was new. When he didn’t realize yet that I was eventually going to get what I want and maybe he would too
I ordered the same drink I ordered that day. The barista smiled at me before I even finished speaking and said, "I've got you.” She didn’t ask my name. She didnt ask what size. She just made it. She somehow remembered. She remembered me. When she handed it over, she held my gaze a second longer than necessary and said, softly, “Good luck with everything.”
I don’t know what she meant.
Im sitting here writing this at the same table we sat in then. It’s smaller than I remember? The booth bench just creaked when I shifted my weight and the couple next to me glanced over. The guy looked away a little too quickly and his knee tucked in closer to the table. The woman’s elbow drifted outward like she was claiming space and she leaned in to whisper something to him. My hearings so good these days I couldn’t help but hear that it was about me.
At the Channel 5 station, after we wrapped up, the producer pulled me aside. A woman I hadnt met before - tall (well for a normal well maybe she wasnt a normal I maybe smelled Program on her), severe haircut, sharp lipstick. She had a kind of Russian accent maybe. She told me they want me back. Regularly. More interviews. Panels. Commentary. “People want more of you,” she said, like I was a - I dunno - asset. Then, quieter: “The world is changing. You can feel it, yes?”
I nodded, because that seemed expected. She smiled like that was confirmation.
“You may find,” she added, “that you are closer to the center of it than you realize.”
I didn’t ask what she meant. I don’t think I wanted to hear it yet.
But I do feel it. Momentum. Like a current that’s picked me up, or one I’m making. People pause when I speak now. They wait. At the studio, the camera guy Derek adjusted the lights without being told, just because I shifted in my seat and glanced at him. Julie the interviewer checked with me before asking some questions, as if she needed permission. Even here, the line at the counter reorganized itself when I stood up to grab a napkin. No one complained or really said anything. It just happened.
Stuff also keeps getting rearranged around me without anyone saying that’s what they’re doing or why. At the station they moved the interview up ten minutes “for timing reasons” but I could tell it was because I was ready early. At the office, meetings start when I walk in now, not when the calendar schedule says. People get moved around. Doors open sooner. Someone at the studio stopped a whole little argument behind me with just a hand in the air so I could finish a sentence. I don’t think he even realized why he did it. I just felt it, like the world tightening in the right places in the way I want.
I don’t fully understand how or why this is happening. It’s not like I asked for this.
But I don’t hate it.
The weird thing is I can feel how easy it would be to lean into it.
Like - just a little. Just saying yes more. Letting people wait. Letting things slide my way instead of pretending it’s coincidence. I’m not even talking about being mean or bossy or anything. Just not shrinking myself back down to make things fit.
That thought just kinda scared me when it popped up. Because it didn’t feel wrong. It felt practical.
I keep thinking about the producer, the way she said the world is changing like it was already decided, like she was just letting me in on a secret I was late to. And how she talked about me not like a guest, but like a - I dunno - Something you plan around. Something you build for. Maybe tv segments. Maybe new buildings. Someone who doesn’t just show up but shapes what comes next.
I’ve been telling myself this whole time that I’m just managing an office. That I’m just trying to keep people safe and organized. That I’m just reacting to things as they happen.
But sitting here, in the place where Jay and I first sat across from each other with coffee between us and all that nervous energy, I can admit something to myself:
This could be bigger.
Not just Far Horizons. Not just one facility. Not just one city. The way people look at me lately - like they’re waiting to see what I’ll decide before they decide anything at all - it feels like the start of something that doesn’t end with a title on a door.
It’s not like I asked for this. But I definitely don’t hate it.
And it’s not just about Jay. I know that now. I think part of me kinda pretended it was - like everything I was becoming was somehow in service of us as a couple, of keeping him safe, of keeping us balanced.
That was easier to live with.
But the truth is bigger. This thing inside me doesn’t stop at one man, even one I love. It wants reach. It wants to be permanent. It wants to matter.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want him. I really really do. I want his smile when he looks up at me like I’m his solid ground. I want the way he relaxes when he knows I’m there. I need that anchoring, that proof that I’m still me. That I’m a woman.
But I do feel it now: I could go on without his approval. Without his permission. Without his love, if I had to.
I don’t like that part of me. I don’t want to be the kind of woman who just outgrows people and leaves them behind like old clothes. I don’t want to force him into something he doesn’t want or isn’t ready for, even though I know I could. Even though I know how easy it would be to push instead of wait.
I want him to walk with me not be dragged. Not be reshaped until he fits. I want him choosing me, the way I’m choosing him - even if it feels like the ground under us keeps shifting like earthquakes. Earthquakes I make.
Ugh sorry Journal. I know I keep checking my phone even though I told myself I wouldn’t. Wondering if we’re going to see each other tonight. If we’ll meet somewhere I dunno neutral. If we’ll actually talk, or just circle each other carefully like we’ve been doing today.
I feel jittery without him, like I’ve had too much caffeine and nowhere to put it.
I hope I see him tonight.
I really, really do.
-M
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