Not that I was going to text my father. I knew he was already losing his mind, frosting over, hatching plans to eviscerate me. He did not text. If I tried to text, he’d likely pay millions of dollars to some scientific genius to build snow bombs, have them directed at my house and bury me under an avalanche of chill.

No, I went to Robin’s text string and opened it.

I’d texted her last and I’d done it two weeks ago.

But my text reply had been two days after she’d sent hers.

She was giving up on me.

I told myself this was what I wanted. I needed relationships that were healthy. If nothing else, my recent visit with my kids told me I could not veer from that path.

But I missed my friend.

I rested my hand with the phone against my thigh and dropped my forehead to the steering wheel.

Josie and Alyssa were sweet. Josie and Alyssa both made it clear they liked me. Josie and Alyssa also had made it clear that they were there to listen should I need to share.

But I couldn’t share, not that, not the ugliness that I’d perpetrated against my family. I wanted them to keep liking me, not think I was the whackjob my son called me.

No, right then I needed someone who knew me. Who got me. Who understood where I’d been and where I was going.

Robin understood the first part.

The last, I wasn’t sure she had that in her.

But right then, I was no longer sure I shouldn’t give her the chance to try.

And right then what I was worried about was that the longer I didn’t offer her that opportunity, the less likelihood I’d learn she had it in her to give it to me.

More, I had it in me to give what I could back.

“One day at a time,” I whispered to the steering wheel. “One challenge at a time. One thing at a time. Keep moving, Amy.”

I blinked at the steering wheel and abruptly sat straight.

I’d never called myself Amy because no one had ever called me Amy.

Until now.

“Oh God, now I’m torturing myself with absurdities,” I snapped at the windshield.

What lay beyond came into focus and I remembered I was challenging myself to go see a movie. To keep building a life. To learn to be comfortable with me.

Sitting in my car, doubting myself while talking to myself meant I was failing.

Resolutely, I turned the ringer off on my phone, threw it into my purse, grabbed my bag and got out of my car.

I was in my seat in the theater when I realized none of that was hard.

In fact, it was not only easy, it was great.

Sure, asking for one ticket was a little tough.