Photo by Tina Bosse on Unsplash

The day begins the same way it has for the last forty years. The alarm wakes me. I rise, stretch, use the restroom, and get dressed. It is so routine I could do it with my eyes closed.

Breakfast is always two eggs over easy, with two pieces of slightly burnt toast and milk. I’ve never been a coffee person, and people have commented on how I can be so ready to go without coffee in the morning. I’ve always been a morning person, so it doesn’t really bother me.

At 7:45 am, I walk out my door and get my Volkswagen Bug started. The Bug has been my prized possession since I bought it in 1974. I’ve never had a single issue with it. I’ve been the only one to ever work on it. The oil is always changed every 3,000 miles. It is dependable, just like my morning commute. I take a right out of my driveway to the end of the road, then a left onto the highway. I follow that to town, then straight on through to my job at the laundromat.

I’ve been here since right out of high school. All day long, I wash, fold, iron, and prepare the customers' clothes. It is a good job, and it doesn’t require much brain power. I like it, though; it has given me plenty of time to think over the last few years. To figure out how I’m going to escape from this same old routine.

It all started about five years ago; I had this vision that I would end up dying here. I was in the process of ironing a man’s work shirt when I became immersed in thought. The weird thing is before that event, I never even thought of doing anything else. I never wanted something more for my life. I was quite content with how things were, or so I thought.

As I ironed the shirt, I had a vision of keeling over dead. The owner came in and was more concerned the shirt had been burned, and it would need to be replaced. He didn’t even seem to notice that I had died.

That thought startled me so much I looked down, and low and behold, the shirt had an outline of where the iron had burned right through. I looked at the shirt and thought to myself is this my life, is this all there is?

I had to call the customer and explain about his shirt. All I can say is he was very mean and thought poorly of my performance, even though that was the first time I had ever become distracted. I inquired if he wanted the shirt back. His answer was no.

So I finished out my shift that day with no other issues. I ended up bringing the shirt home. I stared at it off and on for the next week before I decided to hang it on my wall. See, something about that shirt and the incident made me wonder. Is this my life? Shouldn’t there be something more? I learned over time, thinking can be the best form of self-help or the worst form of self-sabotage. There is a fine line, and I decided I was going to walk it.

I knew I needed a plan so I could get out of this town and do something I had always dreamed of doing. I loved anything that had to do with the beach. Every vacation I ever took, I ended up at the ocean. Something about the waves rolling up onto the beach made me fall in love. I decided I wanted to retire by the ocean.

So my plan was to start looking for a place I could fix up. Just a small place I could make my future home. A place that the tides would guide. I would have no routine. I would wake when the sun rose and sleep whenever I wanted.

I had a nice savings account and an even bigger investment account. I could have retired years ago, but I never did because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Thank goodness I never felt the need to touch my money previously. I ended up purchasing a small place by the ocean a few months after the shirt incident, and every weekend, I have been driving out and working on it.

I didn’t tell anyone about my plan because sometimes it is just better to have a secret all to yourself. That way, it is yours, and no one can destroy it. It took me a few years to get it all fixed up. Now, it is just perfect.

Today is my final day here at the laundromat, but no one knows it yet. I have been moving all my stuff out of my house and am getting ready to put it on the market. My same old routine that I can do with my eyes closed is coming to an end. I am walking away from my job when my shift ends tonight. I’m walking away from the old, and come tomorrow, the word routine won’t exist to me anymore.

— Nicole Barden 6/24/2021

Originally published in Illumination on Medium