The biggest mistake in life is fearing a mistake

This story is by Michael Piasetzki and was part of our 2024 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

The biggest mistake in life is fearing a mistake

 

There’s always a time and place in one’s life that signifies a crossroads.

For Tully Sanders, that life-changing event occurred in the spring of 2004. He was 25, living in Montreal.

Tully was a good-looking man, around 6 feet, 180 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. He had a square chin with a cleft. He rarely smiled. A serious man, he wasn’t married or had a girlfriend.

Tully lived in a basement apartment of a duplex. His mother lived upstairs.  His father died when he was 22.

He had his entrance and privacy. He cooked for himself, though he wasn’t a culinary expert. He bought a lot of prepared foods at the grocery store.

He was close with his mother, a still attractive woman of 55 who was an immigrant from Poland. She arrived in Canada after the war, as a displaced person. She was a victim of the Holocaust. That affected Tully very much. It made him serious and sullen at times. He suffered a lot of psychological guilt because of it. But he loved his mother very much. They were extremely close. They had dinner together every Friday night. They also went to classical concerts and movies together.

Tully worked at a community newspaper in the center of town. He graduated from university a couple of years earlier with a degree in journalism.

He wrote entertainment in an office of 18 people. That included other reporters, production staff, and advertising salespersons. There was always a lot of activity in the office. Each reporter was always on the phone. Each would listen to other conversations. Each would give facial expressions such as smiles or grimaces or even rolling their eyes.

There was big Dan the sports reporter. Ian the news reporter. Daniel the editor-in-chief. Clint the photographer. Finally, there was Ken the publisher.

One late April afternoon, Ken walked over to Tully’s desk. Tully was tapping away on his computer, pounding out another weekly column.

“Can I talk to you for a minute Tully?” he asked.

Tully looked up and said, “Oh, hi Ken. Yes sure. You startled me. I was writing my column.”

“I’m sorry if I scared you. In my office, OK?” Ken said.

“Yes, sure Ken. I’ll be there in a minute.” Tully answered.

Tully wondered what was going on. Was he getting reprimanded? Laid off? Fired? Ken never asked him to come into his office in all the time he’d been working on the paper. This couldn’t be good.

He saved his column, put his computer to sleep, adjusted the handle of his coffee cup, and walked to Ken’s office.

“Tully, I have some news for you,” Ken said as he walked in. “One of our sister papers along the chain in Alberta has an opening for an entertainment editor. It’s in Lethbridge, a fair-sized town of 10, 000 people. I recommended you for the job and they accepted. They’ll interview you but it’ll be a formality. They want you out there in 6 to 8 weeks. What do you say?”

“Wow Ken, that’s fantastic,” he answered. “This is exciting. Anything else I should know about the job?”

“You’ll need a car,” Ken answered. “Public transportation is lousy there. There are few cabs to take like here. Besides that, you should fit in fine.”

“Give me a couple of days to think if over ok Ken?” Tully answered. “That’s only fair.”

“Sure, take a few days,” Ken answered with a smile. “They want an answer by next week. Ok. I have a meeting. Oh, and let’s keep this between you and me for now. Ok? No need to tell Daniel about this until you’ve made up your mind.”

“Sure, Ken. Between you and me,” Tully said.

Tully walked back to his desk. His head was spinning. His heart raced with excitement. His stomach clenched in angst. Part of him felt hope. This was his big break. He’d work for a couple of years in Lethbridge and then move on to a major daily in a bigger city.

Another part, though, was full of apprehension.

It was the car.

Tully had a driving license but never owned a vehicle. He feared being in a situation where the car broke down. He worried about getting into an accident. He feared dying.

There had been the incident. He never wanted to face or deal with it. He put it away in the back of his mind. Like an old garbage bag in the back of a cluttered garage.

He had taken a road trip to the United States with his friend Bobby a few years back. Bobby had a car. He drove most of the way. But there were times when he was too tired. Tully had to drive.

Bobby was sleeping when it happened. It was nighttime. Tully was driving on the highway along a straightaway in Oregon. On the other side approaching from the distance was a big ten-wheeler. Tully tried dimming his highway beams in response so as not to blind the other driver.

“Oh, God. Oh, crap,” he said.

Bobby woke, realized the situation, and with amazing calm said, “Just put the lights back on man. You know how.”

By the luck of God Tully clicked the highway beams back on. Up ahead a couple of thousand feet or so was a curve. Two seconds later they would have both been dead.

Tully managed the curve and finished his share of driving.

He put the incident out of his mind afterward. But after the road trip ended, he never drove a car again.

Over the next few days, he racked his mind trying to decide. He talked it over with his mother. She didn’t encourage him one way or the other. His brother discouraged him, telling him he’d be miserable in a small town in southern Alberta.

His friends couldn’t understand why he’d leave a big city like Montreal for a small town in the boondocks of Alberta.

He decided to accept the position. After telling Ken he decided to take more driving lessons in the coming weeks. That would give him confidence.

They threw a going away party for him at the paper. Everyone told him he was making a great decision.

He bought a plane ticket. The day before he was to leave, he started to suffer panic attacks. He felt like he couldn’t breathe at times. He perspired all day. He had sweaty palms. He experienced periodic headaches.

He envisioned the worst. He dreaded the thought of buying and driving that car. The concept scared him silly.

The night before he was to leave, he called the airline and canceled his ticket. He talked himself out of it.

He called Ken the next day and told him about his decision. He never told him about the car issue. He said he had changed his mind.

“I understand,” Ken said. “But you’ll regret this for the rest of your life.”

Because Tully had resigned from his job at the paper, he had no job. He looked around for other journalism jobs but couldn’t find any. He ended up leaving the field. He took a job as a security guard at the United States Consulate.

Tully met a girl and married her. They continued having suppers with his mother every Friday night. She never remarried. He never found himself as far as a career went. He got by doing labor jobs.

He never drove a car for the rest of his life. His wife did. He never knew if he would have been a successful journalist or not. But part of him always felt unfulfilled. He felt regret about what could have been.

One day he was sitting in a restaurant with his wife. He looked around and saw his old publisher Ken at another table with his wife. Their eyes met. Ken walked over to him.

“Tully, nice to see you,” he said. “It’s been a long time. What are you up to these days?”

“I’m working at a department store now,” Tully answered. “In the sports department.”

Ken’s face dropped like a rock. “Oh, that’s great, Tully. Good luck, then. I have to get going. I have an early day tomorrow.”

“Goodbye, Ken. Nice seeing you,” Tully answered.

Ken walked away. Tully watched him leave the restaurant.

He took a sip of wine. He looked at his wife and said, “You know, the biggest mistake you can make in life is fearing making a mistake.”

Tully’s wife raised her eyebrows.

“I read that today on the internet.”