Photo Credit: Amandalen Madruga

Earlier this year, I wrote and submitted a piece to the Palo Alto Weekly Short Story Contest. I wanted a chance to write for fun and to flex my creative muscles. I didn’t win anything in the contest, but I won’t let that stop me from sharing my work with the world!

So below, I present to you my fictional short story:

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She had it all. She looked in the mirror. She saw her reflection. A young woman with wide-leg trousers and a silk blouse tucked in at her waist. Makeup was fresh and loose curls framed her face. At quick glance, she had it all – a successful career, charming husband, beautiful home, and plenty of loved ones in her life.

Yet in the depth of her eyes, there was a sadness, and emptiness – like she was not all quite there. That her mind was off in some wispy place, where her dreams roamed free and her life looked completely different than it did now.

She cleared her throat and adjusted her necklace. With a swift look at her watch, she realized she was running late. She scrambled to gather her belongings and rushed into the car, jamming the key into the ignition. She backed out of the driveway and headed to work on the same mundane route that she had taken countless times before. She felt empty, yet so rushed. She felt like there were a million things to do at home, and that there were a million things waiting for her on her desk once she stepped foot into the office. She never seemed to have enough time. The faster she ran, the faster it ran away from her.

She delivered some important documents into the VP’s office. She looked wistfully around at the office, and at the woman who sat in a chair behind the desk. She wanted that role. She knew how much more it paid than hers. She knew the money would help with the mortgage and stressful bills piling up on her desk at home. However, there were three other people also up for promotion. They were neck-in-neck with similarly high-profile projects, but she worried that the other people were more likeable than her. They were more social with the boss. They were more outgoing and funnier than her.

She was just too darn busy at work to socialize or add anything else onto her plate to get more recognition. She was exhausted. She plopped into her office chair for a few brief minutes before she had to get up. In her next meeting, she’d have to make a presentation and face difficult questions on the lackluster product sales numbers. She kept mentally checking off whether she was doing the appropriate things her manager reminded her to focus on to get that promotion. But in a tiny corner in the back of her mind, she wanted to escape.

She wanted to escape this massive trap that she had somehow gotten ensnared in. She could barely breathe. She was drowning. She was barely surviving. It was motion after motion, executing item after item like a workhorse – both at work and at home. Was this life? Was this what she was meant to do? Surely a life of more joy could exist – but she didn’t know anyone around her that found it. Every time she questioned what was going on, she got shut down. “This is the way it’s always been done here.” “Life is hard.” “This is what it’s supposed to be like.”

Even as people kept repeating those mantras to her, louder and stronger, they never failed to extinguish this little glimmer of hope inside her. The hope that there was something more. That there was this life that could be hers, where in fact life was simple. Life was quiet. Life was joyous. Life was just… life. There was no self-inflicted suffering or anxiety-inducing phone calls or emails. There was just her and the people she loved. When she told people about this fantasy of a better life, they laughed at her. They told her that it was a myth and that hello? she better return to the real world.

But even that didn’t stop her. She knew that she was meant for something more. She knew that she had a sliver of a chance to make a change. There was a rapidly closing window of opportunity where she could possibly escape this trap. The longer she sat and thought about it, time was mocking her and running farther and farther away from her.

Finally, something in her snapped. It didn’t matter who else she talked to. It didn’t matter who would give or not give her permission. SHE would be the one to give herself permission to choose her own path. And her path was not the one that this company had set out for her. For so many years, the company had led her to believe that the VP’s office was the way forward, but her heart was calling her elsewhere. Even though she was gripped with fear in every cell of her body, her heart contained a steady and strong conviction that her path was the way out the door. The way out into the world.

She pushed the door open, smelled the brisk fresh air of freedom, and took a confident first step out into the world. The door slammed shut behind her, but she didn’t feel as sad as she thought she would. Because when one door closes, a million more doors open.