I arrived in Garland, Texas with three cans of Diet Dr Pepper and a vague will to live. No greeting, no instructions, not even a passive-aggressive sign on the fridge. Just a guest house on a ranch that smelled faintly like mildew and off-brand Febreze, a fridge that rattled when it ran, and a couch with the structural integrity of a deflated pool float. It was late July. Triple-digit heat. I wasn’t sure if I was having a breakdown or just adjusting.
The dog was a black lab, old and thick around the middle, with the cold, vacant stare of something that had witnessed violence. Not just “been through a lot” but like, held grudges. He didn’t bark. He didn’t wag. He just stared straight into your soul, then growled and walked away like he’d chosen to spare you. I never learned his name. He roamed the property like he was on patrol. I gave him space.
My first three days in Garland were spent in darkness. Literally. I kept the curtains drawn and lights off. I watched Vanderpump Rules on my laptop like it was a sedative. I cried quietly and consistently, the way you cry when you’re not trying to feel better, just trying to get through the hour. I wasn’t eating. My only groceries were those three cans of Diet Dr Pepper.
The only real contact I had was with Miki, the property manager. Miki was maybe five feet tall, bleach blonde, and missing a few teeth, though she carried herself like a woman who had survived several natural disasters and one or two ex-husbands. She never stopped moving. One minute she was mowing the lawn, the next she was dragging a toolbox across the gravel and swearing at the sprinkler system. But she always had time to talk.
And she talked a lot. About her dogs, her late mother, the guests who bought her car or tried to hotbox the horse stalls. She’d knock to ask if I needed anything, then casually spend twenty minutes telling me about the neighbor who left the dog with a vendetta or the time a raccoon climbed into the dryer vent. I never asked her to stay. But I never wanted her to leave, either.
She didn’t offer advice. She didn’t ask if I was okay. She just talked. Loudly, vividly, like someone who had seen the worst of people and decided to find them funny anyway. I found her grounding.
When I told her there was a hornets’ nest forming in the roof above my porch, she didn’t panic. Didn’t even blink. She said, “Wait inside ten minutes.” That was it. Ten minutes later, she knocked on my door in a full bee suit, holding a power washer like it was a weapon.
“It’s gone, sweetie,” she said, already walking away.
Before Garland, I thought peace would arrive in a place. Or a person. Or a very expensive moisturizer. I thought it would come from finally escaping whatever version of my life felt most cramped at the time. I believed in the fantasy of elsewhere, that if I could just get to the right location, everything in me would align.
But there was no elsewhere. Just flat land, cherry trees, heat, and stillness. There were no cute cafés, no friends nearby, no plans except work. Nothing to distract me from the fact that I felt hollow. Which meant there was nothing left to do but feel it.
There’s a Buddhist idea, one of the Four Noble Truths, that says suffering comes from attachment. And in Garland, I learned that most of mine came from exactly that: attachment to the idea that this moment should be different. That I should feel better. That I should be somewhere else. That my life should look prettier, neater, more intentional.
But it didn’t. It looked like this. And when I stopped trying to change that, everything got a little quieter.
I started waking up early. Not out of discipline, just because the heat made it impossible to sleep past eight. I’d take my coffee outside and sit barefoot on the porch, where the concrete was still cool and the air hadn’t fully turned against me yet.
The cherry trees out back were crooked and half-wild, but they held fruit. The grapevines ran along the fence. Sometimes the dogs would wander by. Sometimes they’d sit beside me. Sometimes they wouldn’t.
I didn’t listen to music. I didn’t check my phone. I didn’t take pictures. I wasn’t trying to make it into anything. I just sat. And watched. And sipped my coffee.
And I didn’t feel healed. I didn’t feel enlightened. But I didn’t feel like running away, either.
That was new.
I wasn’t waiting anymore. Not for my mood to lift, or the job offer to come in, or someone to text me back. I wasn’t rehearsing a future version of myself who felt more worthy or more ready. I wasn’t even trying to be okay.
I just was.
And maybe that’s what peace actually is. Not pleasure, not clarity, not a reward for doing everything right. Just the absence of resistance. Just sitting in the middle of your life, however underwhelming it may be, and not needing it to change.
Miki’s yelling at the hose again. The dog is lying in the dirt like a corpse. The porch is still hot. The coffee still tastes burnt.
And I’m still here. Not fixed. Not transformed. Just here.
Apparently that’s enough.
spring break 