Recovery Hardware by Gina Schaefer

Author:Gina Schaefer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Persistently Local Publishing
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

You’re Better Than You Think You Are

I had a dream once where I was seated in an enormous theater. The space was cavernous with thousands of red plush seats and a soaring, gilded ceiling. As the theater lights dimmed a hush came over the crowd. A tall man in a tuxedo walked through an opening in the long velvet curtains and took center stage. Then he walked ominously toward the audience pointing at the person seated immediately in front of me.

“You’re a fake!” he bellowed, and then pointed to another person. “You’re a fake,” he said again, and then pointed at another, and another, with the same damning resolve. Finally, I looked around and realized that the entire audience looked exactly like me. I was occupying every seat in the house. I was having the actor’s nightmare, only my theatre was a hardware store.

I’ve spent 18 years fighting imposter syndrome. I can be surrounded by friends yet look around the table and think: How the hell did I get here? Do people think I know what I’m talking about? I didn’t become comfortable enough to claim my authority until I joined the Ace Hardware Board of Directors.

Marc and I moved out of Logan Circle in 2006 because we needed a break. We had left behind the “group home” that had sustained us while we built the business. One of the ways we had afforded to eat while building the business was to stuff our house with friends who helped pay the mortgage. It was a friendly and revolving cast of characters, who lent the air of a small-town motel to the joint.

Margie came for a year and infused us with her funny sayings like Shot who? (Excuse me, what did you say?) or Good groceries! (Holy cow!). Lisa passed through on her way out west and Christine made a second appearance living with us in between stints in Uganda or grad school until she finally went to work for USAID. There were others, all of them loved by us in a variety of ways and at that age who doesn’t appreciate a perpetual pajama party? We were surrounded by buddies ready to chug wine with us at all hours. It was a wayward house, a crash pad, and our ticket to grow. And then, eventually, we outgrew the place. We were ready for some privacy.

Our new home was about three quarters of a mile down the road in a neighborhood called Penn Quarter, about five blocks from the White House. Marc liked to joke that we “should invite Barack and Michelle over for dinner because technically we’re neighbors.”

For a time, I affectionately called our condo the cocoon, because that’s what it felt like. There wasn’t a lot of natural light, so it was dark and womb-y. Our minuscule balcony overlooked the dimly lit alley that had provided the escape route for John Wilkes Booth after he shot Lincoln. Finally, we weren’t surrounded by customers. No one knew who we were and that allowed us some room to exhale.

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