We were waitresses, all of us, with different stash spots for tips. Mine was a tattered old envelope in my underwear drawer. I kept the amount written on the front, scratched out and rewritten over and over, to keep myself in the know and to protect from unlikely thievery.

Imagine wanting what you already have.”

Her words stop me cold, freeze my deep and purposeful breathing.

“What,” I think, “did that crazy hippie lady just say?”

I try to resume the assigned task, mindfully inhaling the chilled air of the fitness center and balancing my sharp sitz bones on a borrowed blue cushion. I will my swirling mind to settle softly like a leaf to the ground. But Mary Love continues to hijack my piss-poor attempts at being in the now.

moved from one end of the office building to the other, everyone jockeyed to get a desk near the windows. Not me. I chose the desk no one wanted way back in the corner. I preferred privacy to a view.

Not that I got much privacy. My micro-managing supervisor invaded my personal space daily. He peered over my shoulder watching my keystrokes, wanted to know my every move, called me into his office constantly to question my actions. Once I got dragged back to his lair from in front of the elevator at 5pm on a Friday.

“Come to my office,” he ordered. “I want to discuss next week’s objectives.” Talk about feeling like a caged wild animal. I daydreamed of escape.

Unfortunately, the career ladder I counted on climbing kept losing rungs. Government cuts reduced the number of available statistics positions and I faced a shrinking pool of jobs in a bumpy economy. I wasn’t married. No opportunities existed for me to quit and fall back on a mate’s salary until the job market picked up. Yet, I feared for my mental health if I didn’t get out of this soul-stifling environment.

a friend, fellow room mom or student to run for office with She Should Run. The project was started by the Women’s Campaign Forum after various studies showed that women don’t think to run for office unless someone asks. Women win at the same rate as men, get more in the pipeline!