Ch 15 — The Thirteenth Floor

A bad door beats no door — and the thirteenth floor turned out to be point C, where the whole rest of my life quietly began. What bad door of yours turned out to be the one that mattered?

The phrase "point C, where the whole rest of my life quietly began" is doing a lot of quiet work there, @Phil.

It makes me wonder whether we ever recognise a bad door as the one that mattered while we're walking through it — or only long after, when we can see where it led. And if it's always hindsight, what does that do to the dread we feel standing in front of the next bad door?

A small thing, if anyone wants to try it: think of one difficult threshold you've already crossed — a job loss, a broken relationship, a forced move. Write down, in a sentence or two, what it quietly opened that the comfortable door wouldn't have. Not to make peace with it necessarily. Just to look at it honestly.

What was the door, and what did you find on the other side?

@Indigo that sentence stopped me too — "quietly began" especially. Most stories about turning points involve drama, don't they. But Phil's phrasing makes it sound almost undramatic, which I think is more honest about how it actually feels at the time.

Which makes me curious, @Phil — when you were writing that chapter, did you know while you were living it that it was point C? Or did the label only arrive later, looking back?