Where It All Began
I used to believe belonging was something you earned through effort.
What I didn’t understand, what took me decades to see, was that I’d been confusing wanting with claiming. I had wanted to belong my whole life. I had never once reached out and taken it.
That changed on a cold Tuesday night at a bar stool in a neighborhood Italian restaurant, I heard four words and something in me answered before I could stop it.
We were at Ciao Ragazzi, a local Italian restaurant in the neighborhood. It was cold that night, and because it was a weeknight, the bar was mostly empty. Cheryl and Stacey were already there when I arrived. Their dinners finished, drinks half gone. I slid onto the stool next to them and ordered a beer before I even had my coat off. Stacey had her Miller Lite with a lime, Cheryl had vodka and water, with just enough cranberry to tint it pink. That night, the conversation started no differently than any other. We talked about life, guys, my kids, Cheryl’s son, and work. It was the usual weeknight catch-up until one of them said it.
“We’re going to Ireland.”
“I want to go,” I said, so fast the words startled me. No pause to ask about the details, no running the numbers in my head. The words were out there now, sitting between us.
Without a second thought, as Stacey pulled up her flight information, I was on the Expedia app, trying to locate the flight they had booked. Before anyone could say no, I pulled out my credit card and booked the flight. While I was booking my flight, Stacey emailed the travel agency, Love Irish Tours, sharing my interest in joining the tour. The deposit could wait. I knew I was going.
The questions came later, the way they always do.
Who would take care of Henry? He was barely sixteen and still in high school. It was the first time I’d traveled and left the kids at home, in our house, without me there. I knew I could count on my ex-husband Jay to keep things steady on the home front, but I flew my mom in anyways — their first stretch of real time together, and without me there as a bridge between them. There was Oliver, our thirty-pound golden doodle, all energy and mischief. And our sweet, elderly cat, Shadow. There was Sophia, who would turn eighteen while I was gone. She was at college, but still this would be the first birthday I wouldn’t be there when she woke up or when she went to sleep. It was also Henry’s first year playing football, and I wouldn’t be there for homecoming, senior night, or parent-teacher conferences.
And then the money. I had some saved, but it was for high school and college tuition. I wondered: Could I touch it? Could I replace it in time to pay the balance when it came due?
I noticed, somewhere in the middle of all this, that I was very good at generating questions. I had always been good at it. It was a skill I had refined over years of wanting things and finding reasons why not. The questions felt like due diligence. I knew they were actually something else — a way to politely back out.
But this time felt different.
For the first time, I felt ready, like the timing was right and I had earned the right to go. None of the questions had been resolved. None of the worries had been quieted. I was going — not because I had figured something out, but because for the first time in a long time, I had claimed something before I could take it back.
That was new. That was the beginning.