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The Wednesday Meeting, Part One
The meeting starts at 7pm. I always get there a few minutes late. It’s either work or Seattle traffic or some family situation…or all three. I head home on the subway, usually about 45 minutes. Then I shower, heat up something frozen, and take a Lyft over to the meeting. I used to sweat being late. A few months in, I now fully expect I’ll be late. It’s a 90-minute meeting. I try to catch the last hour, but tonight I’m on time.
Jackie leads the meeting. She’s energetic because of the caffeine (she empties an energy supplement into her black coffee) and the sugar rush of the Mallomars. Jackie has been leading the meeting for at least as long as any of the weekly attendees has been here. And some have been here for over two decades. Jackie always wears a track suit and fresh sneakers. Her look and her energy always seem slightly out of place here. “Let’s start tonight with regrets. First, let’s define “regret.”
“Something that’s hard to let go of…like life,” says Emmy. A few people chuckle.
She’s in her late 50s or 60s, a raspy voice and a soul brimming with sarcasm. She makes me think of Dorothy, from Golden Girls. The tall one who always wears a pained expression.
I don’t think about regrets anymore. When I was in my 20s I did. Life still felt so undefined it was easy to imagine the other paths. Now, in my 40s, it…
