Beginning Again
Spontaneous. That’s what his buddies would think when they found out. Old Mr. Johnson across the street was watering his roses. He waved to him. His neighbour just scowled at him, turned the water off and rolled up the hose. Jack was pretty sure he’d go in, tell his wife he’d seen him and mention how rude he’d been. Jack never could figure him out why his neighbour thought he was rude. He had always tried to be friendly. The old man and his wife would be watching. They watched everyone on the street and if they didn’t know for sure what people were doing, they made it up. Jack put his briefcase down. He squinted up at the sun. It was a lovely warm and calm day. Looking over at his garden, thinking of all the work they had put into their house, he picked it up again. About to go down the steps to his car, he said “No, not this time.” He looked around to see if anyone was in ear shot. Their marriage had started out idyllic and joyful. For six years it had been beautiful. She left him. Just like that. One day she was gone. After that, he just continued going to work, smiling, going out with his friends after work. So many blind dates. Jack shook his head. None of them lasted more than two dates, if at all. Eleanor had been his one and only. None of the others even were even close to her. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put her on a pedestal. No one could ever live up to that glossy image of her." Jack turned back to the front door of his ordinary house on that ordinary street. He locked the door for the last time and put the keys in the mailbox. Taking his gray suit jacket off, he put it and his wallet in the saddle bags of his bicycle, put his black helmet on.
Jack rode away. He didn’t know where he was going or how long he’d be riding. He only knew that his life had become too rote and secluded from a world of possibility.
“I could stay, and search for what had been home, or I could go,
now, before the walls shifted and the ways out was shut.”
~ Tara Westover, Educated
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