NOTE: All names have been changed to protect those who didn’t realize their passing interactions were with someone who processes life through paragraphs, turning casual moments into contemplative essays one uncomfortable epiphany at a time.
It was supposed to be an unremarkable Friday lunch—the kind where the most exciting decision should have been whether to splurge on a beer or a Martini. This restaurant was a safe space, a nearby lunch destination that was just portentous enough to know people I didn’t want to bump into would never show up, but casual enough to satisfy my need for a po-boy. I chose it precisely for this reason, like picking the most reliable sweater from your closet—comfortable, predictable, zero chance of emotional dry cleaning required.
Then entered… let’s call her “Darby”—a plot twist in human form, carrying menus and wearing the kind of smile that makes your carefully constructed walls wonder if they should have been built with better materials. Maybe reinforced steel instead of the bargain-bin emotional bricks I’d been using.
There was something electric about her presence, a current of authenticity that shot through the rehearsed restaurant choreography. She radiated this fascinating contradiction—confidence wrapped in vulnerability, like emotional gift wrap that someone had forgotten to completely smooth out. The creases telling stories the surface tried to hide. Instantly, she was more than just another server navigating tables. She was a riddle my heart hadn’t expected to encounter over lunch specials and unsweetened tea, a puzzle piece that fit a space I hadn’t known was empty.
The first half of that meal became an exercise in self-interrogation, my thoughts pacing back and forth like a detective in a noir film who’s just discovered the case is personal. Why this sudden intensity? Why her? Why now, when I’d so carefully crafted my life into a fortress of comfortable solitude? It was like my heart had decided to stage a coup against my brain’s carefully maintained dictatorship of indifference.
She wore her strength like a second skin, but beneath it—visible in fleeting moments between drink refills and menu recommendations—lay something achingly familiar. A softness. A complexity. The kind of person who probably apologizes to furniture when bumping into it, yet could absolutely destroy you in a battle of wits if properly provoked. In those glimpses, I saw a mirror reflecting back pieces of myself I thought I’d packed away in boxes labeled “Do Not Open.”
My internal committee—that chattering congress of Borderline, ADHD, and Depression who usually run my emotional legislature—was in complete disarray. For the latest in what had become a noticeable trend, they called an emergency session, pushing papers across their mental desks, frantically trying to make sense of this unauthorized breach in protocol. “We didn’t approve this feeling!” they shouted in unison, their panic visible in the coffee stains on their metaphorical ties. The chairperson of Anxiety was already drafting a strongly worded memo about proper procedures for unexpected emotional responses.
Everything about her landed with the precision of a cat burglar who’d somehow memorized the location of every creaky floorboard in my psyche. At one point, betraying years of carefully cultivated social restraint, I heard myself say, “I have to know more about you; I want us to be friends.” The committee gasped in horror. But her response about “scratching the right part of my brain” short-circuited their objections like a power surge through a dollar store extension cord.
I returned later with my daughter—perhaps seeking a witness to my own madness, or maybe just needing someone to verify that Darby wasn’t just some lunch-induced hallucination, a mirage born from too much iced tea and emotional repression. Halfway through the meal, I confessed my wild plan to leave my number. My daughter, ever the voice of reason in my chaos, laughed and assured me Darby’s warmth was just professional courtesy, the same way a flight attendant’s smile doesn’t mean they want to hear about your stamp collection.
But I left it anyway—my number and a link to this blog, like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in a forest I wasn’t sure I wanted to find my way out of. The committee was beside themselves, drafting strongly worded memos about protocol breaches and the dangers of unvetted emotional exposure. Their filing cabinets of carefully cataloged anxieties were bursting at the seams.
Maybe that’s what this is really about—not just Darby, but this moment of recognition. This sudden, startling reminder that beneath all our carefully constructed barriers and professional veneers, we’re all just walking bundles of hope and fear, looking for connections we didn’t even know we were missing. Sometimes the heart recognizes a kindred spirit before the mind has time to build its usual fortifications.
If Darby becomes that friend, that unexpected chapter in my story, wonderful. If not? Well, at least I’ll know I didn’t let fear of rejection add another “what if” to my already overcrowded collection. Because at this point in life, I’ve learned that time is too precious to waste on carefully worded maybes.
Sometimes you have to let your heart stage its little coup, even if your internal committee threatens to resign in protest. Because every now and then, between the lunch specials and the refilled water glasses, life hands you a moment of pure, unscripted possibility. And the real courage isn’t in knowing what to do with it—it’s in simply allowing yourself to feel it, acknowledge it, and maybe, what the hell, leave your number on a receipt like a flirtatious note to chance itself.