The Spare Room

After the divorce, I slept in the spare room for a while.

It made practical sense.

The house had enough space. We were still sorting finances, possessions, schedules, and all the paperwork required to officially confirm that two people who once promised forever had mutually decided forever needed an amendment.

We got along.

There was no immediate reason for either of us to rush out.

At least that’s what I told myself.

The spare room had a bed, a small dresser, and a window overlooking the side yard. It was perfectly comfortable in the way hotel rooms are comfortable. Everything you need is there, but nothing feels like yours.

I kept my clothes in duffel bags at first.

Then I bought a plastic set of drawers.

That was a dark day.

There are few things that make a man question the direction of his life faster than assembling temporary plastic furniture in a room twelve feet away from the bedroom he used to share with his wife.

I held up one of the plastic rails and thought, “Well, Andrew, this is certainly a bold new era.”

The strange thing was that my ex-wife and I slipped into friendship more easily than we had slipped back into marriage during the final years.

Without the pressure of trying to repair what no longer worked, we became kinder.

We made coffee for each other.

We checked in.

We talked about the kids.

We laughed about old stories and occasionally looked at each other with the shared realization that we probably should have figured this out sooner.

There was love in the house.

There was also nowhere for either of us to go.

That sounds contradictory, but most real things are.

One Saturday morning, we sat at the kitchen table going through a list of belongings.

“Dining room table?” she asked.

“You keep it.”

“You hate that table.”

“I have never trusted that table.”

“It’s a table.”

“It knows what it did.”

She shook her head and wrote her name beside it.

We divided lamps, cookware, books, furniture, photographs, and several items neither of us remembered purchasing.

Then she asked, “What are you going to do?”

“About the blender?”

“About your life.”

I looked down at the list.

The honest answer was that I didn’t know.

I had spent weeks waiting for clarity to arrive before making a decision. I thought there would be a morning when I woke up and suddenly understood the exact next step.

That morning never came.

Instead, I woke up each day in the spare room, walked into a familiar kitchen, and continued living inside the shell of a life we had already agreed was over.

It wasn’t terrible.

That was what made it dangerous.

People assume we stay stuck because our circumstances are unbearable.

Sometimes we stay stuck because they are bearable enough.

The spare room was comfortable enough.

The arrangement was friendly enough.

The days were manageable enough.

I wasn’t miserable.

I also wasn’t moving.

There is a kind of comfort that restores you.

There is another kind that slowly puts you to sleep.

I was beginning to understand the difference.

A few days later, I got a call from an editor about a possible photography assignment in California. Nothing was confirmed. The work might be two days or two weeks. There were locations to scout, schedules to coordinate, and the usual vague promise that someone would call me back after they spoke to someone else who was apparently speaking to someone living in a bunker without phone service.

But the possibility stirred something.

I pulled out an old road atlas.

Yes, an actual paper road atlas.

I own GPS, I own a phone. I am not opposed to technology. I simply enjoy spreading a giant map across a table and pretending I am planning an expedition instead of trying to find an interstate.

I traced the route west with my finger.

Maryland to Pennsylvania.

Ohio.

Indiana.

Then all those wide middle places where the sky gets bigger and gas station coffee becomes a serious health concern.

I started imagining what it would feel like to drive without needing to come back immediately.

To photograph places no editor had assigned me.

To stop in towns because the light looked good.

To sleep in the truck if I had to.

To breathe somewhere that did not contain every memory of the life I had just left.

That evening, my ex-wife found the map on the table.

She looked at it, then at me.

“You should go.”

“I might have work out there.”

“I’m not talking about the assignment.”

I didn’t answer.

She sat across from me.

“We’re going to be okay,” she said. “But you’re not going to figure out who you are by living in the spare room.”

Sometimes the people who know us best are the ones most qualified to call us on our nonsense.

I had been telling myself that staying was responsible.

Maybe some of it was.

But part of it was fear wearing a responsible-looking jacket.

I was afraid leaving would make the divorce real.

I was afraid she would move on.

I was afraid I would move on.

I was afraid the kids would think I was running away.

Mostly, I was afraid I would leave and still feel lost.

That is a possibility nobody likes to discuss.

A change in scenery does not guarantee a change inside you.

But staying in the same place guarantees that the scenery stays the same.

I closed the atlas of maps and carried it into the spare room.

That night, I stared at the ceiling and made another quiet decision.

I would not live indefinitely in the waiting room between my old life and my next one.

I would finish what needed finishing.

I would pack what mattered.

I would leave before I felt completely ready.

Because ready, I was discovering, is often just fear’s way of requesting another extension.

And I had already spent enough time sleeping in the spare room.

You may never feel completely ready.

Sometimes “ready” is simply fear asking for more time.

We tell ourselves we are waiting for clarity, confidence, better timing, or one more sign. But often, we already know what needs to change. We are just hoping the fear will disappear before we have to move.

It usually doesn’t.

Courage is not the moment fear leaves. It is the moment you decide fear no longer gets to make the decision.

You do not need the entire plan.
You do not need every question answered.
You do not need to feel fearless.

You only need enough honesty to admit that staying where you are is costing you more than beginning again.

Take the step.

Begin before fear turns another week into another year.

Begin before it talks you into staying.

Andrew is the traveler / life teacher, adventuring and writing for The Brotherhood Post. It’s this story we will follow and grow with, lessons learned, photos share, and more. Monthly, real letters sent in the mail with photos, inspiration, and other cool things, to subscribers. In between the real mail, follow along on the journey here. Learn more and join along on the adventures and receiving cool shit with the link below.