STEADY

H.E.R. DEFINITION
STEADY is not the absence of the pull. It is not erasing the part of you that still wants what you know you should not go back to. It is noticing that pull, naming it honestly, and staying anyway, not because you do not feel it, but because you are not willing to let it drive.

I was ten minutes away from his apartment complex, and I knew exactly which building it was, because he showed me himself, weeks before he ghosted me like it never happened.

I was in Carlsbad to see my friend Rose Marie. We were long overdue for a catch. And I thought that instead of our usual phone tap, I'd go visit her. But a few days before I even left for the trip, I looked up how far her place was from the address that... let's just call him 'Cobbler' lol, had pointed out to me once. Ten minutes. I remember sitting there, staring at the route... the distance, shocked, and then laughing to myself, because of course. Of course the universe would put us that close.

Anyway. I arrived and we went to a neighboring city for lunch and laughs I caught my friend up on life, landing squarely on the situation about 'Cobbler', the phenomenal guy I was really digging. The one who disappeared without a word. The one who lived, apparently, right down the road. lol And before I could even finish the thought myself, she said it out loud.

Should we drive by?

It was a joke. Mostly. But if I'm completely honest, somewhere underneath the laughing, it was not fully a joke, and I think we both knew that.

This is where I want to stop and be honest about something, because STEADY is not a word I get to claim just because I did not do the thing. STEADY is not about being unbothered. I was bothered. I was thinking about him more than I want to admit on a trip that had nothing to do with him.

So. The next day of my little turnaround trip, I'm driving out of Carlsbad, his building somewhere behind me... or in front of me, or who knows... but I had one more thought of him as I continued passing through... before I merged onto the highway and kept going.

Two things kept me steady in that moment, and neither one of them was willpower.

The first was simple math. If Cobbler cared about our connection even half as much as I did, I would have been invited over - not just told about it. I would not have needed to look up an address. I would not have needed a reason to be in his city. If it mattered to him the way it mattered to me, I would have been visiting him, not Rose Marie. Sitting with that math did something. It took the decision out of the realm of feelings, which were loud and inconsistent, and put it into the realm of fact, which was not.

The second thing was quieter and it was faith. Somewhere in the past month, this door had closed. Not by my hand. Quite frankly, I had wanted it open. But it closed. Period. And I have learned that when the door is closed, trying to keep it open is always a mistake. Cause who am I to keep negotiating with a no?

What STEADY actually felt like in my body driving away was not peace, not exactly. They say 'two things can be true at once,' right? Well. I felt proud of myself for keeping it moving, for not letting my most delulu, hopeful heart take the wheel. And I felt genuinely sad, because no matter how strong that connection felt to me, it was over. Both of those were true in the same hour. STEADY did not erase the sadness. STEADY just meant the sadness did not get to drive.

You know what actually surprised me. A year ago, I would have driven by. I do not even know what I thought that would accomplish. Maybe just to see the building. Maybe to feel close to something that was already gone. I don't really know. But I know the me of a year ago would have done it, because she needed the loud, dramatic gesture to feel like she was doing something about her feelings.

This year, I did not need the gesture. And that contrast, more than anything else about this trip, is what told me I am actually growing. Not loud. Not profound. Nobody would have noticed if I had driven by or not. But it was there, in me, quiet, real, steady.

I also want to be honest about the version of this that is not about growth at all; it is just about self-protection. Because let us say I had driven by. Let us say I saw him. Let us say I saw him with someone else, or worse, with the wife he told me he was separated from. There are so many ways that could have gone that were not cute, not healing, not closure. Just humiliation I would have handed myself on a silver platter. So there is a meme going around, a woman's voice just saying, don't do it girl. That was basically the soundtrack in my head. It is funny, but it is also real. Sometimes STEADY is not some deep spiritual achievement. Sometimes it is just refusing to hand yourself a bad night for no reason.

If you are the one reading this, or listening to this, sitting ten minutes from somebody's door with every excuse lined up to happen to be in the area, here is what I actually want you to know. That pull is not a character flaw. Wanting to see him does not undo any of the work you have done. But acting on it is a control tactic dressed up as curiosity, and it rarely gives you what you actually want. It gives you a story you have to recover from instead of a story you get to be proud of.

STEADY is not the absence of wanting. It is not never thinking about him again, driving through his city without a single thought crossing your mind. I do not think that version of STEADY exists, and if it does, I have not met her yet. The STEADY I found in Carlsbad was smaller than that, and more honest. It was staying in the car. It was letting the math and the faith do what my feelings could not. It was holding pride and sadness in the same hand and not needing to choose between them.

I did not get closure that day. I did not get an answer, a conversation, or a goodbye that made sense. What I got was quieter than that. One step closer to true acceptance. And I am starting to believe that is what STEADY actually is. Not a finish line. Just the next quiet step, taken anyway.