The Walk I Didn’t Wait For

Excerpt from my Pokémon notebook, dated November 2, 2000:

“Today I walked home alone. Didn’t tell Mom. She thinks I went with Daniel but he left early. I was scared the whole time. There was a cat on the wall and it looked like it knew something. My hands were cold but I kept going. I think I’m different now.”

—

I was ten the first time I walked home alone, and even now I can still feel the weight of that decision—not as a memory exactly, but as something more physical, something stored in the way my hands sometimes clench in cold air, or the way I instinctively scan the pavement for cracks when the world feels uncertain.

Until that afternoon, I had never gone more than a few blocks without someone beside me—an older cousin, a friend from school, or most often Daniel, who lived two floors down and always walked like he had somewhere more important to be. He was the kind of boy who kicked stones out of his way just to watch them ricochet. I admired that, though I never said it out loud.

That day, Daniel had gone home early. I don’t remember why—maybe a dentist appointment or a fever or just something unspecific and adult-sounding—but he wasn’t there when the last bell rang and the gates swung open and children scattered like birds. I stood there for a few minutes longer than I needed to, backpack straps too tight against my shoulders, wondering if I should wait for someone else or ask to join a group heading the same way.

But then something strange and unfamiliar swelled in my chest—not boldness exactly, not defiance, just the quiet realization that I could. That no one would stop me if I left right now, if I followed the route I already knew by heart. Eleven and a half minutes. That’s all it was. A left at the bakery with the cracked window, across the intersection with the lopsided stoplight, then past the row of pale houses with flower pots that were always just a little too full.

So I went.

—

The world felt louder walking alone. Each step landed heavier. I noticed the crunch of leaves underfoot, the shifting of birds on wires above me, the sound of a distant door slamming that I was sure—just for a second—was meant for me.

And then I saw the cat.

It sat on the low wall just before the underpass, the one covered in ivy and chalk scribbles that never made sense. The cat didn’t move. It didn’t blink. It just stared with the kind of gaze that made you feel like a question had been asked, and you hadn’t yet answered. I wanted to walk faster, but my legs didn’t agree. They kept their pace, stubborn and steady, like they were afraid that to hurry would admit something was wrong.

I remember thinking, If I make it past the cat, I’ll be fine.
And I did.

And I was.

—

When I got home, my mother was washing carrots. I told her I had walked back with Daniel like always, even though I hadn’t seen him since lunch. She didn’t question it. Just nodded, flicked water off her fingers, and asked if I wanted a slice of pear.

I sat at the kitchen table in my damp socks and nodded, saying nothing, feeling everything.

I wasn’t proud. I wasn’t guilty. I was something else entirely—like I’d stepped just slightly out of the version of myself everyone expected and found, to my own quiet surprise, that the world hadn’t ended.

That it had kept turning.

And so had I.

—

The Risk You Can’t Brag About

I’ve taken bigger risks since. Risks with money. With work. With people.
But none of them carried the same clean weight as that walk home.

Because that wasn’t a risk you could explain to someone who hadn’t lived inside your ten-year-old chest.
It wasn’t loud.
It didn’t come with applause or fear of failure.
It came with silence.
With the kind of fear that whispers instead of shouts.
With the realization that no one would know what you did unless you told them.

And I didn’t.
Not for years.

Because some victories don’t need to be shared to change you.
Some aren’t even victories, exactly.
Just steps into your own skin.

—

Wabi-Sabi in the Unfinished Courage

Wabi-sabi reminds us that the beauty of things lies in their imperfections, in their incompleteness, in their becoming.
That walk wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t confident or smooth.
But it was mine.

And in that imperfect journey, something essential formed:

– You don’t need to be fearless to move forward. You just need to not stop.
– A risk doesn’t have to look brave to be brave.
– Not every lie is a betrayal—sometimes it’s a bridge you build toward who you’re becoming.
– Some truths arrive later, long after the moment has passed, shaped slowly by memory and meaning.

—

Excerpt from the same notebook, written weeks later, November 20:

“I told Daniel I walked alone that day. He said, ‘Cool.’ Then we threw rocks at a can and I hit it twice. It felt different. Like I was taller, even though I wasn’t.”

—

I don’t regret it.
Not the walk.
Not the lie.
Not the fear.

Because sometimes the risk that matters most
is not the one that changes your path,
but the one that changes your sense of self.

Even just a little.
Even for eleven and a half minutes.
Even if only a cat saw it happen.