Becoming Clara Chapter 10: Off the Shelf
You're always window shopping but never stopping to buy. The old song lyric hits Clara like a truth she's avoided for decades. Time to step off the shelf.
Ten days ago, Clara realized she had a choice—not just in small things, but in her whole life. The idea thrilled her. Today, an old recipe card and a forgotten song are about to show her the truth: she’s been window shopping her own life for decades.
Chapter 10: The Recipe Card
Clara stood at her counter, the hydrangea painting glowing behind her like a small, stubborn promise.
Late-afternoon light poured through the window, turning the blue petals tender, almost translucent. The breath practice from earlier still lived in her body—her shoulders soft, her jaw loose, her mind spacious in a way it hadn’t been that morning.
She’d pulled the old recipe file onto the kitchen table hours ago, intending to plan supper.
But now she’d forgotten why.
She could feel herself in the room in a way she hadn’t in years. Not dramatically. Not loudly.
Just present.
Present enough to notice the refrigerator’s low hum. The basil on the windowsill releasing its green, sharp scent into the air. The quiet rhythm of her own breath.
She reached for the folder.
As she lifted it, something fluttered loose from the back and skidded across the table.
A yellowed index card. Ink faded to ghost-gray. Corners curled like dried leaves.
A recipe she barely remembered saving.
She picked it up and laughed—a soft, surprised sound.
Chicken à la King.
The magazines had promised it was easy enough for a Tuesday night. She’d saved it at nineteen, certain that adulthood would be a parade of dinners she’d lovingly cook for people who adored her.
Nineteen.
The number had its own sting if she let herself stay with it too long.
As if answering that ache, an old song rose from somewhere deep in her memory.
Bright. Cheeky. Hopeful.
Hey there, Georgy Girl.
She froze.
That song had chased her through her early twenties like an older sister who knew all her secrets.
She could see herself again—twenty-two, walking through town in her best dress, pretending to be breezy and unbothered. The way the girls in the movies always were.
Fancy-free on the outside.
A rattling loneliness tucked just under her ribs.
She wondered now if anyone had believed her performance.
Probably not.
She pressed the recipe card against the folder to steady herself as the next line drifted up and slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.
You’re always window shopping but never stopping to buy.
The words landed in her chest with the weight of a decades-old truth.
She had spent half her life looking at possibilities through glass. Watching other people choose. Keeping herself tidy and safe on the shelf—never quite stepping into the life she wanted, only admiring it from a distance.
Behind her, the kettle clicked.
The spell snapped.
She blinked, then placed the recipe card in the center of the table as if it deserved its own small altar.
Maybe this was part of the quiet rearranging happening inside her. Maybe remembering who she used to be was its own kind of doorway.
She reached back into the folder—gentler now—and slid out the next slip of paper.
Something shifted.
Not a lightning bolt. Not an epiphany.
Just a soft recognition.
There was another version of her in these layers. A girl who once imagined the woman she might become.
A girl who never quite stepped off the shelf.
Clara exhaled, long and slow.
Maybe it was time.
She’d read somewhere online about women like her—women choosing to reimagine, to rebuild their lives from scratch. At the time, it had sounded unrealistic. Like something other people did. Braver people.
But now, living alone in this quiet apartment, paying her own bills, making her own choices—she was beginning to feel something she hadn’t felt in years.
Curious.
And just a little bit bold.
The real question hummed beneath everything: How? How do I rebuild into the life I always wanted?
And of course, right on cue, the old voices arrived.
What will people think?
Who does she think she is?
Clara set the recipe card down and looked out the window.
Those voices didn’t pay her bills. They didn’t live with the ache of a life left on the shelf. They didn’t wake up at 2 AM wondering what could have been.
And besides—maybe by building the life she actually wanted, she’d find new people. People who understood. People who were doing the same thing.
That thought made her pulse quicken.
Clara’s done window shopping her own life. What about you?
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Stop watching. Start stepping off the shelf.
