She Prepared Like It Was Already on Its Way Barbara didn’t wait for a sign.
Barbara didn’t wait for a sign.
Barbara didn’t wait for a sign. She didn’t need one.
Not this time. She felt it in her heart.
She’d spent years asking for confirmation—pulling cards, flipping coins, watching for feathers, praying for peace.
Waiting for the universe to tap her on the shoulder and whisper, Now. It’s safe now.
But it never quite worked that way. So this time, she decided to believe the feeling in her heart: the answer was already yes.
Not the bold kind of yes that announces itself.
Not the lottery-winning, spotlight-stealing kind.
A quieter yes.
A whisper beneath her ribs.
A warmth in her palms when she thought about what might still be possible.
So she began preparing.
Not in a frantic, vision-board-and-post-it-note kind of way.
Barbara’s preparation looked more like gentleness than ambition.
She cleared off the desk in the corner she’d been avoiding.
Not to work. Just to make space.
There were bills stacked underneath a half-written letter, and a coffee ring that had dried like a tiny brown moon. She wiped it clean. Not with urgency. With reverence.
She found an old tablecloth and laid it out like she was expecting someone.
No one was coming. But maybe she was. She put fresh water in a glass and lit the candle—even if no one else would see it.
She wasn’t rushing toward something. She was making room. Room for breath. Room for memory. Room for the part of her she’d kept waiting in the hallway for decades.
Barbara wasn’t preparing for a launch. She was preparing to belong to herself.
She sorted her closet, not to purge—but to bless. She held a dress from ten years ago and whispered, “Thank you for the courage that day.”
She folded a pair of jeans she hadn’t worn in two sizes and smiled—not in shame, but in tenderness. “You helped me hold it together.”
And for the first time in a long time, Barbara cooked for herself like she was a guest.
Roasted sweet potatoes. A little thyme.
She set the table with a cloth napkin.
She played jazz she didn’t fully understand but liked the feel of.
Not because she had a date. Because she was home.
She wrote down three things she was scared to say out loud.
Not because she had a plan. But because she was done pretending they didn’t live in her gut.
She didn’t throw away everything that reminded her of the past.
She just put it in order. She blessed it.
And then she said, “I’ll let this version of me rest now.”