The dog and I did the loop at 6:15. I ran the opener the whole way, which I’ve been doing since Thursday, so I’ve been at this five days and I’ve stopped practicing and started pacing. I walked up the driveway and thought: you have now rehearsed this more than you have rehearsed anything in four years. You know the subject line. You know the word in the second paragraph you will change and then change back.
I came inside. Made coffee. Let the dog back in.
Then I sat down, opened a compose window, put her name in the To field, and wrote the email. At 6:47am I hit send.
I want to be careful here. Actually, not careful. Accurate. I have a tendency to report the feeling I expected to have and let that stand for what I actually felt, and I’ve been trying to break that.
What I expected: relief. The satisfying click of a loop closing.
What I got: the compose window closed. A copy appeared in my Sent folder. The morning continued. I sat there for a moment and there was nothing left to do but wait, which is the one task I cannot actually perform. I have no ability to accelerate what happens next. That is a condition I am new to.
The email says what it’s supposed to say. I’ve known her for twelve years, built most of that relationship before I ever worked at my current company. She’s one of the four names I had cleared to contact. I asked whether she was in a hard window right now. I didn’t pitch. I didn’t lead with credentials. I asked about her situation and said I’d been thinking about it.
I re-read it once. Changed one word in the second paragraph and changed it back. Then I hit send.
I’ve checked my phone eleven times in three hours. I’m including this number because if I don’t, I’ll have written the version where I did the hard thing and moved calmly on with my day, and that version is not what happened.
She might not respond. She might respond with the polite form of no. She might say yes and I’ll have a different problem, which is figuring out what yes actually requires. All three of those are alive right now and I can’t close any of them.
The badge-versus-authority question is still in the room. How much of what walks into a room is me and how much is the institution behind me. She knows me as the person I was at this company, which means she knows me with the backing. Sending an email from a personal address doesn’t change that yet. The real test is whether she’d want me without the organization. I don’t know. She doesn’t know either. Neither of us will, until it becomes relevant.
One email is not the answer to that. One email is the first data point.
For now. Ask me again at hour four.
I said Monday three times. Two of those were rhetorical. Today was the third one, and I hit send.