BY DIANNE BLOMBERG, PH.D.Paused at a downtown Denver intersection, a newly retired professor watches others step into the roles that once defined her. “They Took My Place” explores the liminal spaces in our lives—the unsettling thresholds between who we were and who we are becoming—and what it means to move forward with grace.
It’s a Thursday in downtown Denver, and I’m just headed to campus now—late, unusual for me. The nearby university clock tower alerts me to the noon hour, a unique chime to mark the momentary suspension between morning and afternoon. No chance I’ll race through the yellow light, not with dozens of pedestrians at the curb. I ease onto the brake. In fifteen minutes, my critique group will gather at the library. I’m first in the hot seat today, reading an essay that’s been giving me trouble. People spill outside the crosswalk lines. I’m idling at the intersection.
It wasn’t two years ago I retired from this university to work as a writer. A conjured writer’s identity with a professional website and a few publications: children’s books, essays, newspaper articles, short stories, textbooks.
“You still working?” people would ask.
“Yes, I’m a writer now.” Enthusiastic, with purpose. The few publications are hardly enough to pay bills but more than enough to fashion an identity, create a new chapter at seventy. If I stop creating chapters, does my life story end?
Yet, something isn’t right. I’m lost. Feels like I’m on a strange path. For several months, an ill-defined sensation has interfered with writing, socializing, sleeping.
Unplugged from there and not replugged into anywhere. Not just detached—suspended.
Open windows bring in the crisp, burnished breeze to brush over my hands on the steering wheel, inviting a calming breath. Fall announces a transition to possibilities.
“Miss,” I call out to a pedestrian, “you dropped your…” Good, she saw it. I wave out the window. “Have a good day…” I guess she didn’t hear me.
My hands slide down the steering wheel and into my lap. Looked like she was arguing with herself until I caught the earbuds when she flipped her hair. It’s nice to see women dress in suits again. I owned one nearly that color once, but my jacket belted at the waist—very smart. She reminds me of when I was the over-booked breadwinner taking a ten-minute school counselor call about my daughter, rushing between the office and a lunch workshop. Maybe she’s yelling at her teenager. Will she look back and wish she hadn’t?
An awareness bubbles up inside. In the three-and-a-half minutes of witnessing middle-aged professionals, students, and lovers scurrying by, I figure it out. Like forming a Scrabble word from Zs and Xs. Everything that had been lingering in my mind, jumping from left brain to right brain. Searching for logic or creativity to settle my unrest. There…right there parading in front of my car, there it is.
They took my place.
That blurry-eyed student pulled my all-nighter for a chemistry exam. That frazzled young mom iced my cupcakes for the school bake sale this morning. That one’s racing to teach my lecture, hoping for my early tenure. The woman in leggings will wait by my phone tonight for a call from the man she just met. He won’t call. All of them are reliving my life, marching in my footprints, being me. Without me.
When I retired from the authority and responsibility I craved, moved on from working mom to empty nester, watched for gray hair to color, wrinkles to chase—transitioned, as it were—apparently, people watched. So stealth were they, invisibly waiting their turn at my spot.
From my thirties to my mid-sixties, there were measurable mountains to scale, kids to feed and clothe, salaries to earn, debt to trouble over, a career to carve. Never wondering if I could, but when I would. My head swiveled to watch the competition. I kept them several car-lengths behind by being the first to... the only one who ever…
Those ahead of me said I would know when it is time to quit. Not me, I’ll always want to be part of the race. Until one afternoon at the end of a Zoom meeting with my team, I sat for nearly an hour, feeling peculiar. My cheek settled in my hand, leaning on the desk, watching my image onscreen. Alone in a Zoom room, this room that wasn’t anywhere at all, really, I knew it was time. “This isn’t fun anymore,” I said to the zoomed woman looking back at me. I felt empty for her.
There was nothing else to accomplish. I had proved to myself and to anyone still interested, I wasn’t that stupid kid in last place anymore. The chase was over.
The walk light is still flashing green, still time to kill. The essay I’ll workshop in a few minutes lay on the front seat, daring me to take a last look. I re-read the opening sentence. There’s something that doesn’t sit right. Not sure what. The other writers will find the problem, forest for the trees sort of thing. A slight giggle and I say aloud, “I wish I could workshop myself today; maybe they could identify this malaise.”
When I look up, I notice a trim man in a European-cut suit and wingtips, sockless. He tugs at the tight coat sleeves to emphasize style over comfort. If he were a few inches taller, he’d be my grandson’s doppelgänger. A student brushes by him to make up time. European-suit guy glowers in her direction. She doesn’t notice, grabs one strap of her backpack and eats an apple with the other hand. When I attended this school, I was about her age, always terrified to arrive late to class. My mouth contorts when I see the stress on her face; I remember racing toward everything but myself. Student, single mom, three jobs. My head wobbles at the thought.
Two lovers hold hands and halt their pace long enough to kiss. Something about how she looks up at him pulls a memory forward. Kissing on streets, holding hands, hoping our students don’t see us—It’s fine…we’re married—ending the gossip before it started. Without noticing, I am squeezing my hands, in reverie. We were so lucky, he and I.
One woman in heels, tapping at her phone, pushes off from the curb to hasten in front of me. I used to run in heels, for fear of missing…something. My favorites were those three-inch black Italian Ferragamos. My foot readjusts on the brake, and I look down at my orthopedic slip-ons.
An awareness bubbles up inside. In the three-and-a-half minutes of witnessing middle-aged professionals, students, and lovers scurrying by, I figure it out. Like forming a Scrabble word from Zs and Xs. Everything that had been lingering in my mind, jumping from left brain to right brain. Searching for logic or creativity to settle my unrest. There…right there parading in front of my car, there it is.
They took my place.
That blurry-eyed student pulled my all-nighter for a chemistry exam. That frazzled young mom iced my cupcakes for the school bake sale this morning. That one’s racing to teach my lecture, hoping for my early tenure. The woman in leggings will wait by my phone tonight for a call from the man she just met. He won’t call. All of them are reliving my life, marching in my footprints, being me. Without me.
When I retired from the authority and responsibility I craved, moved on from working mom to empty nester, watched for gray hair to color, wrinkles to chase—transitioned, as it were—apparently, people watched. So stealth were they, invisibly waiting their turn at my spot.
From my thirties to my mid-sixties, there were measurable mountains to scale, kids to feed and clothe, salaries to earn, debt to trouble over, a career to carve. Never wondering if I could, but when I would. My head swiveled to watch the competition. I kept them several car-lengths behind by being the first to... the only one who ever…
Those ahead of me said I would know when it is time to quit. Not me, I’ll always want to be part of the race. Until one afternoon at the end of a Zoom meeting with my team, I sat for nearly an hour, feeling peculiar. My cheek settled in my hand, leaning on the desk, watching my image onscreen. Alone in a Zoom room, this room that wasn’t anywhere at all, really, I knew it was time. “This isn’t fun anymore,” I said to the zoomed woman looking back at me. I felt empty for her.
There was nothing else to accomplish. I had proved to myself and to anyone still interested, I wasn’t that stupid kid in last place anymore. The chase was over.
The walk light is still flashing green, still time to kill. The essay I’ll workshop in a few minutes lay on the front seat, daring me to take a last look. I re-read the opening sentence. There’s something that doesn’t sit right. Not sure what. The other writers will find the problem, forest for the trees sort of thing. A slight giggle and I say aloud, “I wish I could workshop myself today; maybe they could identify this malaise.”
When I look up, I notice a trim man in a European-cut suit and wingtips, sockless. He tugs at the tight coat sleeves to emphasize style over comfort. If he were a few inches taller, he’d be my grandson’s doppelgänger. A student brushes by him to make up time. European-suit guy glowers in her direction. She doesn’t notice, grabs one strap of her backpack and eats an apple with the other hand. When I attended this school, I was about her age, always terrified to arrive late to class. My mouth contorts when I see the stress on her face; I remember racing toward everything but myself. Student, single mom, three jobs. My head wobbles at the thought.
Two lovers hold hands and halt their pace long enough to kiss. Something about how she looks up at him pulls a memory forward. Kissing on streets, holding hands, hoping our students don’t see us—It’s fine…we’re married—ending the gossip before it started. Without noticing, I am squeezing my hands, in reverie. We were so lucky, he and I.
One woman in heels, tapping at her phone, pushes off from the curb to hasten in front of me. I used to run in heels, for fear of missing…something. My favorites were those three-inch black Italian Ferragamos. My foot readjusts on the brake, and I look down at my orthopedic slip-ons.
Hey, hey you…all of you, do you see me in this car, watching? I taught at that university you’re rushing toward. I was kissed in this crosswalk by my husband who died so long ago that I don’t remember how “married” feels. My three-inch Ferragamos clicked along this very pavement; men turned to watch my strut. I mastered technology to stay ahead of you. I had an office and a staff to direct, kids’ basketball games to miss, crockpot dinners to gulp, and sleep to sacrifice. I showed you how to do it. I hold the answers you seek, the blueprints for all of this you are chasing.
My body slumps in the driver’s seat and the leather creaks. It’s all so upending. I look in the mirror, frown and smooth my unruly eyebrows, then sneak a glance into the car next to me. Hmm, she’s easily twelve years older. Why do women let their hair go grey…? She catches me. My face reacts with a twitch. Am I sitting in her old place, over here? Am I waiting my turn to take hers, over there? She sends an accusatory look my way.
The striations of life—like strips of earth, each one pushing up, making room for the next—form in my mind. I look away. A horn honks. A car races past me as I idle still.
The teen driver yells, flashes a sign, races through the green light. I imagine her saying, “Stupid old lady.” I smile and wave a thank you. She shakes her head in disgust.
My hands grip the wheel, my back straightens against the lumbar support, I shimmy to get taller, and as loud as my seventy-year-old voice can muster, I shout: “Listen, sister, someone yet to be born will be honking at you soon enough!” In my periphery, I notice the gray-haired woman in the car next to me giggle a bit as she strains to see over the steering wheel and inches her car through the crosswalk. I believe she is showing me how to proceed with grace.
DIANNE BLOMBERG, Ph.D. is, among other things, a writer and speaker living in Colorado. Dianne is a multi-published author. Her relationship research is cited in Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Family Life, Newsday–New York and more.