Worthy

I was reflecting on a time when a lot was happening but if you asked me back then, I would have told you it was a slow crawl to nowhere. I somehow knew I wouldn’t stay there but I didn’t know exactly how to get where I needed to be.. I was around 19.

During that time, one of my jobs was at a credit card company where I did data entry and scanning from 1pm to midnight. There were a lot of students or people like me who were taking time away from school.

One of the women I worked with seemed sad, anxious and then surprisingly bubbly at times. Let’s call her Pam. She was a full-figured bespectacled woman in her mid-30s with an 80’s pageboy haircut who only wore high-waisted tight stonewash jeans with plain, tucked in T-shirts. She seemed afraid of her own body, her own shadow and her curves.

I tried to befriend her. We bonded over books.  I offered to help her shop and clean her apartment. It was littered with used snotty tissues and empty soda cans. One day, I was driving back to her place after a shopping trip. She took the opportunity to tell me something she believed.

Pam told me that she believed some people never get better. Some people never recover from depression and there is no amount of therapy, medication, diet or lifestyle change that will ever help them.

Then she told me she believed she was one of those people. I told her I hoped she wasn’t but I pretty much left the subject alone. Soon afterwards, I left the job and a couple of years later, I got my act together and went a couple hours away to finish college.

I was walking out of the library one afternoon and ran right into her! It was surreal. I was 23, about 75 pounds smaller living in the mountains but there she was, a random person from my past. She looked the same but there was something different about her. I approached her, reintroduced myself and she told me she was there on a tour for prospective freshmen.

Our reunion was short-lived but I walked away with hope. Maybe she believed she wasn’t one of those people anymore. Pam was clearly open to starting over or at least believed herself worthy of it.

I haven’t thought about her in years but this afternoon she crossed my mind. Maybe it’s because of my college visit this past weekend or because of this new trial Hubby and I are going through.

I want to remain open to fresh starts, rewrites, unexplored paths no matter where they may take me or where I am beginning from.

After all, aren’t I worthy enough?