Showering this morning, two realities hit me: 1. I have no flight home —  my uncle was only able to get me a one-way ticket; 2. there is no real work waiting for me in NYC — I was able to get my shifts covered at the diner until the foreseeable future. Plus, I have been actively ignoring the freelance agencies’ calls.

“So-and-so from such-and-such agency, calling to see if you can hold July 9-12 for (insert European magazine) shoot with (insert European photographer), call me back at . . . .” I never listen long enough for the call back number.

This shower of clarity, so to speak,  led me to reason that, while in this categorical limbo I might have one of those life pivoting moments that ends one path and cements another.  I’m talking about pregnancy here, people! It is, after all, the leading condition of women my age in this town.

Now, I know (though I have my suspicions) that you can’t just get knocked-up by drinking the water.  But, I also know idleness leads to impulsive choices, that lead to babies.

Ok, let me back up.

The heavy lid on my three landing pads (home/dad’s house, my grandma’s, and my sister Taylor’s apartment) had me hungry for some fresh air. No surprise there, this happens nearly every time I come home for a visit, usually around day three of four.  I get all cagey and need to go for a long drive or get drunk with someone familiar, non-familial.

So I called up Jerry, my high school boyfriend.

“Soph!  A bunch of us are going up to the cabin on the 4th, you should join.”

We were each other’s everything before everything was inclusive of so much.  We were together for five years, with some of those years from a distance of two states lines, while I was at art school in California.

At one point, Jerry moved out there to live with me, but it seemed that each day, the job hunt would inevitably get hijacked by a case of cold beer and the beach.  He eventually relented to the appeal of his dad to take a job helping him run the family business and moved back home.

We were each other’s first test drive: sex, fighting, making up, drunk sex, drunk fighting . . . All the hallmarks of a relationship. Eventually, we tested out how it would feel to crush the other person’s heart. In the end, the score was even.  So, when we called it a day on our relationship, with some time, we were able to walk away as friends.

“I’ll pick you up after work.” He sounded genuinely glad, and so was I.

He rolled up to my sister’s in the company car — a black, extended cab pick-up with a vinyl of the company logo on the side doors. I nearly needed a running start to reach the threshold of the passenger seat.

We caught up, he was enjoying work, had gained a certain amount of trust from his dad and a lot of freedom.  And, evidently, a lot of money, I thought, as he explained that he had just bought this cabin with his sister.

“How is your sister?”  I ask.

When we were in high school, she was a business major at the local college and upon first meeting me, took the occasion to point out how many times I used the word like.

“ I guess that is where Jerry is picking that up from.”

“Candice is good, working at JP and dating this older professor of Philosophy.”

I rolled my eyes in the direction of my window, as to not be seen.

“And your mom?”

Joan, Jerry’s mom, on the contrary, was always so kind to me.  A lean and tiny woman, who is an avid runner and participates in 5k races as frequently as some people mow their lawn.

She and Jerry’s dad divorced when he was eight.  What followed was a long and challenging marriage to a former officer in the Airforce, who ran his household like West Point.  Jerry and his sister had to be in bed by 7 p.m. every night, even in the summer, when the sunset at 8.30 p.m. and the rest of the neighborhood kids were playing freeze tag within shouting distance from their bedroom window.

When Jerry was in third grade, they moved into a new house with a strawberry patch growing in the backyard.  This man, patently opposed to strawberries, or anything he couldn’t control, decided it would be best if he filled the patch with cement to keep it from overgrowing. So, in sum, a piece of work.

Luckily for everyone, the story has a happy ending. After seven years, Joan left the man with no soul and eventually married her high school sweetheart; she never looked back.

“She and Hank are good, they just celebrated their ten year anniversary in Hawaii.”

I let myself linger in admiration of this landscape of normality, but was careful to not stay long enough to land in a self-pity crater.

We were soon weaving the pick-up through the canyon, windows down, familiar scents tickling my nose: sage, juniper, pine.   As we inclined up into the mountain’s curvatures, the air cooled and dusk settled in.

When we arrived at our destination, Jerry slowed down to mitigate the impact of the bumps on the dirt road that leads to the cabin, I see some familiar and some unfamiliar cars parked haphazardly along the grassy shoulder.  I take inventory of the bumper stickers: Jerry Bears, NOFX, Alta, Snowbird, Black Flag, Moab, Utes.

The porch, like a beacon, was filled with perfectly stacked firewood and open, friendly faces.  It felt damn good to see these people.

We passed the night playing pool, drinking beer and sitting around the fire pit out back while my friends Nate and Tony played ‘the blues’ on their guitars and we took turns providing the lyrics. Many hours later, sufficiently drunk and smelling of smoke, I set out to find a place to sleep. Stepping over bodies strewn about the floor like a crime scene, I fumbled to a door, where I saw a bed, and like Goldilocks, I did not hesitate to crawl under the sheets.

I knew it was Jerry’s room, even if I awoke stiffened by surprise to find him in bed next to me.  I lay awake awhile, too much in my head, until a familiar comfort overcame me, a kind of safety I realized I hadn’t been afforded in months and in that instant I started to let it out.  As my body shook in sob convulsions, Jerry turned and moved his arms around me, stroking my hair as I buried my face in his chest. It was all too nice, like medicine. We fell asleep like that.

Now. As healing and needed as that all was, it cannot happen again.  I must not fall into old comforts in time of distress. I have to focus, forge ahead into my future. This is no time for sentimental sex romps.