The Spreadsheet
I didn’t plan to tell this story. For months, I’ve been living in this strange in-between space where everything looks normal from the outside, and nothing is normal on the inside. I go to work.
I answer emails. I post the occasional photo of coffee cups or sunsets. People like and comment and send little heart emojis, and every time I hit “share” on another harmless snapshot that doesn’t mention the fact that my entire life collapsed on my 30th birthday, something inside me tightens.
It feels like I’m lying by omission. Like I’m curating a museum exhibit of a person who no longer exists. So here I am, sitting on the floor of my half-unpacked one-bedroom, laptop balanced on a cardboard box, trying to turn the most surreal night of my life into sentences.
This is the long version. The version I’m still sorting through even as I write it. I remember the car ride there so clearly it feels like someone recorded it and keeps pressing play in my head.
It was a cold, bright day, the kind of winter afternoon where the sun is out but seems to be shining through glass, more glare than warmth. I had just finished a big project at work—a brutal, months-long slog that ended with my boss actually saying the words “You saved us”—and for the first time in a while, I felt hopeful. Thirty sounded like a line in the sand.
A new decade. I had this mental list going as I drove: start therapy again, take a solo trip somewhere, maybe finally move out of my tiny studio and into an actual grown-up apartment. I wasn’t expecting anything special that night.
My parents aren’t “special” people. They’re routine people. The last time they threw a party was my high school graduation, and even that felt like an obligation.
So when I turned onto their street and saw all the cars lining the curb, my first thought wasn’t surprise party. It was someone’s dying. My heart started pounding.
My dad’s blood pressure warnings flashed into my mind. I pictured him collapsed, paramedics crowding the living room. I pulled into the driveway crooked and too fast.
The house looked completely normal from the outside. I could see shadows moving behind the front window, but no one came to the door. I went in through the garage, like I always did.
The garage smelled exactly the same as it had my whole life: oil, old cardboard, laundry detergent. That smell is stitched into my idea of home so deeply that walking through it felt grounding. I balanced the bottle of Pinot Grigio I’d grabbed from the store on my hip as I punched in the keypad code.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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