I sit still for a rare moment. “The Monster Mash” plays softly across the truck speaker, the volume just level with the roar of children bustling around us from house to house. I scan the street hurriedly. I’m feeling restless and can’t put my finger on why. Truthfully, there’s no time for mental charades and processing feelings. Herding children across a vast neighborhood isn’t exactly convenient.
I sigh. Before I turn back to my phone (a nasty habit), the sight of a familiar face halts me. Rachel is her name, I think. No, maybe it was Heather.
I study her face for several seconds, certain I will recall it, but I don’t. I can’t be sure of her name, but I definitely know the face. It’s been over 13 years since nursing school. Some details are bound to be a little fuzzy.
She had been in my cohort for three semesters before she slipped below a B average and was removed from the program. This wasn’t all that uncommon. Students colloquially called this “failing out.”
I remember feeling a sense of impending doom when I would hear the phrase uttered softly in the library when people noticed a classmate no longer attending class after a big exam. Most students who were removed would sit out of school until the failed term was available to repeat the following year. She had said she would likely follow suit.
But when I saw her in the grocery store some years later and asked how she was doing, she told me that she never went back to nursing school. She was doing substitute teaching part-time and focusing on time with family. So many things ran through my mind. How can she afford that? Family time sounds nice… but isn’t that a cop out? I bet she is struggling.
I was stirred by how confident she was in her response. If it were me, I know I would have hesitated and avoided the topic of work altogether, out of shame. I had absolutely dreaded the idea of “failing out.” There was no future beyond that event. Plain and simple.
There was no option other than passing every test and following the instructors advice to a “T” to ensure my success in clinicals. I had to work my way continually upward. There was something I needed to prove to the world.
I realize now that this was a result of comparing myself to others – people that are, if I’m being truthful, restricted and likely unhappy. Those people had successful careers and outwardly affluent lifestyles, however. I thought that’s all that mattered for so long.
But tonight, I sit in the passenger seat of my husband’s truck and witness the future I wasn’t able to see before. This unnamed, familiar woman teeters playfully on a curb, surrounded by no less than six children. They are bobbing around her in a loose semicircle, each of them vying for attention. I watch their gleeful body language and hear their exclamations about full-sized candy bars and the garage down the street full of animatronics.
What stikes me (and prompts this blog post) is the smile on the woman’s face. It grows wide as she tips her head back, allowing the street light to illuminate her relaxed, joyful expression. It is not fleeting.
She’s not checking her phone, grumbling under her breath about how there’s still bath time and getting ready for bed to get done. If she has to wake up early tomorrow, like me, to go to work, it must not be a job like mine. There’s not a shred of evidence here to support that. The children look comfortable, unhurried. I realize something – Halloween has never looked like that for me.
I continue watching her as my 3 children hop in the trailer and sit down abruptly on the hay bales. My husband turns down the music to shout something to them. Before he speaks, I make out my 12-year-old daughter’s voice.
“Guys, we should probably just do one more street so we can get home and start taking showers,” she says.
“Yeah,” her sister and brother reply, in unison.
I’m not surprised by this, really. Just saddened. They’re only repeating words I’ve likely said every year on Halloween. There’s always somewhere to go in the morning, always some reason to rush. We need to speed it up and get to the chain of events that always precedes our perpetual tomorrows.
If we only live in this moment, how will we be ready for the horrors to come? It takes hours every day to prepare for the never-ending. There’s obviously too much to do, shoved into too little time. If you remove one piece, the whole house of cards will come down.
There’s no option but to stab forward. Don’t dwell on your misery. Even as it becomes you.
My mind continues to unpack the short exchange of words between my children. I try to imagine what it must feel like to be the woman on the curb, nonchalantly stopped in the street on Halloween night, surrounded by boisterous kids, overcome with laughter. Why don’t I know that feeling? Isn’t that what I always dreamed of having?
“Go dad!” our son yells from the trailer.
My husband shifts the truck into drive. As we pull away, my shoulders relax, just a little. I smile into the wave of cool air pouring in through the open truck window.
I look around, finally releasing the muscle memory of checking my phone. I absorb the tiny details of the decorations and costumes whirling around us. Maybe it’s ok to just do this tonight. For as long as it takes. Tomorrow will come either way.
I’ve been wasting years. I know it. I own it. I speak it gently to my heart.
I may be failing out in life, but there’s still time.