With a purple, tear-shaped pick pinched between my thumb and the outer middle knuckle of my pointer finger, I strum. My shoulder and arm move like a tendon pulled too tight—a rubber band with barely any give—jerky and unsure. I hyperfocus on my posture, the micro-corrections, much like I imagine a professional golfer does right before impact. I know the goal is to loosen up, to enjoy it, to let the chords billow off my instrument. But I’m too strict. I hold the tension because I’m still starting out. I’m a beginner, and the scrutiny feels like the only way to build the habits I want.
Ten to fifteen minutes—that’s all my fingers will allow before they can’t. The bedding of my thumb starts to throb, my fingertips burn like tiny knives slice at the pads of my pointer and middle fingers. “Please, no more,” they beg.
And then, out of nowhere, my mind shifts: Am I a bad person?
A magnet in my mind pulls an old tape from the top shelf, dusty, and loads it into the projector. Black-and-white crackle. A scene plays.
After friends helped unbox and move Laura into my house, my memory fast-forwards to her on the wooden attic floor. I was in my bed, and she had been too—it was temporary. Did I start a fight? Did I express my discomfort? Was there already a weird energy there, something unspoken? A power struggle? A not-seeing-eye-to-eye?
I don’t know what I’m searching for in that memory. Proof of my badness? Evidence of guilt?
Maybe it just got weird.
But then I wonder what she thinks about it. And when I ask that question, my mind goes dark—as if I either don’t want to hear her version, or there’s a part of me from that time that doesn’t want to be touched yet. Maybe the wound is about feeling like I couldn’t say no. Maybe I compromised more than I should have. That tracks. I did that a lot in those days.
My no is my power now.
It protects me.
It protects my relationships.
I am sorry that that situation happened. I wish it hadn’t. But life has tough, messy chapters sometimes. And gratefully, Laura’s and my friendship—though strained—weathered it. When I watch the reel again with a softer gaze, the story becomes less about how shitty I think I was and more about the strength and durability of our relationship.
These days, my no shows up everywhere—in how I spend my time, how I honor my energy. My days off are often four in a row. I have a non-negotiable one-hour writing practice—like meditation—where I check in with the raw places, or the inspired places. Lately, I’m getting jazzed up about Spanish. I’m obsessed. Even if it’s 12:30 p.m. and my eyes are half-closed, I’m reading As a Man Thinketh from 1903—on my phone, in Spanish. Every word is hyperlinked to its English meaning, and there’s a Spanish-to-English paragraph translator for comprehension.
I like the gentle leash of that book—it’s a reminder to think well of myself, and of others, because love is really all there is.
Love,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 