The Woman I Was for Five Days

Written for the ones not ready to unpack yet.

Five days ago, I didn’t know what my next hour looked like.

I didn’t know where I’d end up for dinner, or who I’d end up talking to, or what story a stranger at the next table might tell me without me ever asking. I didn’t know the route I’d take, because I didn’t know this place well enough to be on autopilot. Every small thing required a small decision, a small noticing. And around day two, I realized that not knowing — the thing that should have felt unsettling — was the most awake I’d felt in a long time.

Now I’m home, and the suitcase is still sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I know exactly what’s in it, because I packed it. I know exactly what’s in my fridge, because I bought all of it. I know exactly what today looks like, and tomorrow, and the Tuesday three weeks from now, because it’s the same Tuesday it’s been for years. And somehow, knowing all of that feels heavier than not knowing did.

I haven’t unpacked the suitcase. Not because I’m lazy — though I’ll let you believe that if it’s easier. I haven’t unpacked it because unpacking it means stepping back into a life I can navigate with my eyes closed. For five days, there was nothing to be on autopilot about.

Here’s what I didn’t expect: how much I’d talk to strangers. Not in a forced way — just small, unplanned conversations that happen when you’re somewhere unfamiliar and a little more open because of it. A woman at a counter told me, unprompted, about the move she’d just made at sixty-three. Another woman shared her Uber and somehow ended up telling me about her late husband. And then there was a man I randomly sat next to — we talked like we’d known each other for years discussing the proper shape of an ice cube in an Old Fashioned cocktail. It was the small, subtle bits of all these conversations that have stayed with me longer than most I’ve had with people I actually know.

None of it meant anything specific, yet it meant everything. Nobody needed anything from me. Nobody had expectations of who I was supposed to be. I got to just be a person, talking to another person, with no follow-up required.

At home, everyone knows exactly who I am — which sounds like it should be comforting, and most of the time it is. But it also means every conversation, every hour, already has a shape before it starts. There’s a strange kind of fatigue that comes from never encountering anything — or anyone — for the first time.

Away, I had no idea what I was walking into most days. And instead of that being stressful, it was the opposite. My brain finally got to stop predicting and just experience. I noticed things I’d normally walk past. I had thoughts I don’t usually have time for. I felt — there’s really no better word for it — alive. Just because everything was new, even the small stuff, and new things make you pay attention in a way familiar things never do.

And then I came home.

I forgot how loud my house is. Not in decibels — in certainty. Every hour of today is already accounted for. I know what I’ll cook (LOL, aka “order in”), who’ll need something from me and roughly when, what’s sitting in my inbox, what the laundry pile looks like without checking. Work didn’t pause. The version of me that everyone here knows — the one with the role, the schedule, the responsibilities — was waiting for me the second I walked in, fully assembled, like I’d never left.

What I wanted, more than almost anything, was quiet. Not sleep — just space. An hour with no one needing anything from me, nothing to predict or manage, so my nervous system could come down off five days of being gently, pleasantly on. Being away, with all its unpredictability, somehow asked less of me. Coming home, where everything is known, asked for everything immediately.

I don’t think the answer is blowing up a life that mostly works, or chasing unfamiliarity all the time — that’s its own kind of exhausting, and most of our routines exist for good reasons. But maybe the answer is smaller. Taking a different route somewhere, just to see something new. Talking to the person next to you instead of reaching for your phone. Protecting one hour where nothing is expected of you, so your nervous system gets a small taste of what those five days gave it.

There’s one small and completely unearned gift this trip gave me. I was two hours ahead the whole time, which means my body now thinks 9 p.m. is basically midnight — and I have never gone to bed this early in my adult life, nor felt this good about it. I’ll take it.

But it’s the people I keep thinking about. The woman starting over at sixty-three. The man and his late wife. The time with someone whose name I’ll never learn to pronounce properly, that somehow felt more honest than conversations I have weekly with people I’ve known for years. Not the place, not even the not-knowing, exactly. Just being someone nobody had already decided I was — even for twenty minutes or even with someone I’ll never see again. There’s a strange kind of friendship in that. Brief, real, and over before it has the chance to become anything else.

If you’ve ever come home from somewhere unfamiliar and felt the weight of how known everything is — for better or worse — I’d love to hear about it. I have a feeling I’m not the only one.

And yes, my suitcase still sits in the corner.
And yes, it will certainly be sitting for another day or two…