Purgatory: A Reminder

Purgatory. That’s what we called it. When we were 22 and 24, slinging lattes over the coffee bar in the middle of the mall.

That middle state that let us stay out late and drag into work, proud of our one hour of sleep and amazing bed heads. “Shot time!” friends would shout as we slammed dark, doppio espressos, wowing the holiday mall shoppers who felt part of something to witness this while waiting for their chocolate mint frappes.

That heavy-guilt state we’d push away, when it came again — “Shot time!” — in a dark bar, after hours, elbow to elbow with others weltering in personal purgatories.

We didn’t talk about it at the bar. Between debates of Republican policies and record labels, it was there. An awareness of something more awaiting us, and still a paralysis of introspection.

Fun so unbearably boring, we had to move on.

Tonight I think of you, my partner in purgatory, in this midnight sky, with Orion over my head, where he hangs out every time this year. A middle-state mainstay since I noticed him at 15, while sneaking cigarettes out my back window.

I worry of bills and children, career moves and spousal convincings, while you sit with Orion, watching it all. A life complete, yet are you still there … in purgatory?

And you, Purgatory. I thought I left you back at the mall, after I sat for hours at my makeshift door-turned-desk, typing my way out of customer service for a published byline that would demonstrate these post-grad months weren’t wasted.

A decade-plus path of growth and experience that I believed led me out — all an illusion.