Moving back home after college was temporary. Three years later, Clara’s still in Janesville—navigating loneliness in your twenties in a town built for families, not her.

The Snow Blower Starts at 6:47

The snow blower starts at 6:47 AM.

Clara knows because she’s been awake since 4:32, staring at the water stain on her ceiling that looks like Ohio if Ohio were crying. Mr. Peterson across the street—retired, widowed, meticulous—fires up that machine with the precision of someone who’s built his entire post-work existence around predictable rituals. Monday through Sunday. Every snowfall. 6:47 exactly.

She used to find it annoying. Now it’s the only thing that feels certain.

Her phone glows on the nightstand. Instagram Stories she watched at 4:47, then again at 5:23, then one more time at 6:12 because maybe something changed in the last hour. Madison’s engagement ring, still there. Tyler’s third kid announcement, still smiling. Jessie at that rooftop bar in Uptown, cocktail sweating in her hand, surrounded by people who look like they’ve never had to convince themselves they’re not lonely.

Clara screenshots Jessie’s story. Deletes it. Screenshots it again.

She does this sometimes—captures evidence that other people are living the version of twenty-five she was promised. Then she deletes it because what’s she going to do, make a folder called “Proof I’m Falling Behind”?

The snow blower whines louder. Mr. Peterson’s working the corner near the mailboxes now.

Clara presses her forehead against the window. The glass is cold enough to hurt. She holds it there anyway.

Tuesday, 9:47 AM: The Video Call Where She Lies

“How’s everything going, Clara?”

Her boss Diane’s face pixelates for a second—rural Minnesota internet doing its thing. Clara’s positioned her laptop so the camera shows the wall behind her, not the window overlooking Mr. Peterson’s driveway and the empty parking lot and the gray nothing of Janesville in January.

“Great! Yeah, really good. Just finished the grant report for the literacy program.”

“Wonderful. And you’re doing okay? I know remote work can be isolating.”

Clara’s apartment is silent except for the hum of her space heater and the distant sound of a garbage truck. She painted her toenails last night—not because she was going anywhere, but because she’d already reorganized her closet, deep-cleaned the bathroom, and watched three episodes of a show she’d already seen twice. The toenail polish was called “Rebellious Red.” The irony wasn’t lost on her.

“Totally fine. I actually really like the flexibility.”

Diane nods. Says something about quarterly goals. Clara’s already left her body—a trick she learned somewhere around month six of living back in Janesville. Her mouth makes the right shapes, says the right things, performs “Young Professional Thriving in Remote Role.” Meanwhile the real Clara is somewhere else, maybe in that coffee shop in Uptown where Jessie was last night, maybe nowhere.

The call ends.

Her apartment swallows the silence back up like it never left.

She walks to the kitchen. Makes her third coffee of the morning. Stands at the counter eating peanut butter directly from the jar with a spoon because who’s going to see, who’s going to care, who’s going to tell her that twenty-five-year-olds with college degrees shouldn’t be eating like depressed grad students at 10 AM on a Tuesday.

Her phone buzzes. Mom: Church potluck this Sunday! Would love to see you there!

Clara stares at the message. Tries to imagine herself at the Lutheran church basement, surrounded by her parents’ friends asking how the job search is going (she has a job), whether she’s seeing anyone special (she barely sees anyone at all), what her plans are (she stopped having plans somewhere around the time Ruby’s Roast closed and took the last semi-functional third place with it).

She types: Maybe! Busy week but I’ll try!

The exclamation points are doing heavy lifting.

She puts the peanut butter back. Washes the spoon. Sits back down at her desk.

Four hours until lunch. Six until she can reasonably stop working. Eight until she has to decide whether tonight’s the night she drives to Mankato for something, anything, or whether she surrenders to another evening of pretending this is temporary.

The math is always the same. The answer is always surrender.

The Library: Wednesday, 6:30 PM

Clara walks into the Janesville Public Library and immediately knows she’s made a mistake.

Eight women are already seated around craft tables covered in rhinestones and Mod Podge. Their heads turn in unison—that small-town synchronized surveillance that happens when a new person enters an established space. Clara recognizes the mechanism from high school, from church, from every social situation in Janesville that operates on the assumption that everyone already knows everyone.

She doesn’t know any of them.

“Oh, hi honey!” The organizer—name tag reads Janet, maybe 55, wearing a sweatshirt that says “Librarians Do It By The Book”—rushes over with the aggressive enthusiasm of someone desperate to prove the event is a success. “We’re so thrilled to have a young person join us! Everyone, this is—sorry sweetie, what’s your name?”

Honey. Sweetie. Young person.

Clara’s twenty-five, not twelve, but the words land the same way: You don’t belong here, but we’ll tolerate you as a mascot for generational diversity.

“Clara.”

“Clara! Beautiful! Grab a seat anywhere. We’re just getting started with book bedazzling—it’s like regular books but fancy!” Janet laughs at her own joke. Nobody else does. They’ve heard it before.

Clara sits at the end of a table between two women deep in conversation about someone’s daughter’s wedding. She picks up a copy of Pride and Prejudice—one of twelve identical paperbacks the library is apparently ready to sacrifice to the crafting gods—and a glue gun.

The women’s conversation continues around her, through her, like she’s furniture.

“—said the venue costs nine thousand, and I said Tracy, that’s more than our first house—”

“—well you know how it is now, everything’s expensive, my granddaughter’s softball equipment alone—”

“—did you see Michelle’s Facebook post about the church committee meeting? I’m staying out of it but honestly—”

Clara presses a rhinestone onto Mr. Darcy’s name. Then another. Then another. She’s creating a pattern that doesn’t exist in the instructions, some kind of aggressive geometric design that’s definitely not what Janet meant by “fancy.”

Twenty minutes in, she tries: “Has anyone read this one? Pride and Prejudice?”

The woman to her left looks up. Smiles. “Oh, I think I saw the movie once. The one with Keira Knightley? So pretty.”

“Yeah, the book’s really—”

“My daughter loved that movie. She went through a whole Jane Austen phase in high school.” The woman’s already turning back to her friend. “So anyway, about the coffee situation at church—”

And Clara’s gone again. Erased mid-sentence.

She stays for ninety minutes because leaving early would be admitting defeat. She bedazzles the entire cover of Pride and Prejudice with an intricate pattern of silver and black rhinestones that probably violates every principle of tasteful crafting. It looks angry. Good.

At 8:00, Janet announces they’re wrapping up. “Same time next month! We’re doing pressed flower bookmarks!”

The women gather their coats, their bedazzled books, their conversations. Clara hears fragments as they leave: dinner plans, grandkid pickup schedules, who’s bringing what to the church bake sale.

Nobody says goodbye to her.

She walks to her car carrying her angry bedazzled book. Sits in the driver’s seat. Doesn’t start the engine yet.

Her phone: 8:17 PM.

She could drive to Mankato. There’s probably something happening. Board game night at that brewery, or trivia at the pizza place, or literally anything that isn’t this.

But Mankato is twenty minutes away and her body is so tired. Not physically tired—she sat at a craft table for ninety minutes. But tired in that way where your soul needs a nap. Tired from trying. Tired from being honey and sweetie and young person instead of just Clara, just herself, just someone who exists at the right frequency for the space she’s in.

She starts the car.

Drives home.

The bedazzled book sits on her passenger seat like evidence of something, though she’s not sure what.

The Call: Thursday, 10:43 PM

Clara’s lying on her couch in the dark, half-watching a show she’s already seen, when her phone rings.

Meredith. College roommate. Lives in Chicago now, works in marketing, has that life that looks like the brochure version of your mid-twenties.

Clara almost doesn’t answer. Then answers.

“Hey! Oh my god, I feel like we haven’t talked in forever!”

Meredith’s voice is bright, caffeinated, coming from somewhere with ambient noise in the background. Music. People laughing. Life.

“Hey, yeah. I know. I’m the worst at calling back.”

“No, I’m terrible too. So what’s new? How’s Janesville?”

And here it is. The question Clara’s learned to deflect with the skill of a professional liar.

“It’s good! Quiet. You know. Same old.”

“Are you still at that nonprofit?”

“Yeah, still there. Remote work is actually pretty great.”

Silence. The kind that means Meredith’s deciding whether to push.

She pushes.

“Okay but like… are you happy? Because every time we talk you say it’s ‘good’ and ‘fine’ and I just—I worry about you, you know? You’re like, alone in small-town Minnesota and I know you said you were just staying temporarily to save money but it’s been…”

“Three years.” Clara finishes the sentence so Meredith doesn’t have to. “I know.”

“I’m not judging! I just… God, I can’t imagine. Chicago’s so busy sometimes I want to scream, but at least there’s stuff to do. What do you even—like, what did you do tonight?”

Clara looks at the bedazzled book on her coffee table. At the frozen pizza box she hasn’t thrown away yet. At the dark window reflecting her dark apartment back at her.

“Went to this thing at the library. Craft event.”

“Oh fun! Did you meet anyone cool?”

And something in Clara breaks. Not dramatically. Not even loudly. Just… breaks.

“No. No, I didn’t meet anyone cool. I met eight women who could be my mom talking about their grandkids and church politics. I was the diversity hire for their adult programming metrics. I sat there for ninety minutes bedazzling a book while they talked around me like I was a fucking ghost, and then I drove home alone and sat in my car for fifteen minutes because going inside meant admitting this is my whole life now.”

Silence.

Clara can hear the music in the background of Meredith’s call. Can hear people laughing. Can hear the entire world that exists outside of Janesville, Minnesota, happening without her.

“Clara—”

“And you know what the worst part is? I chose this. Nobody forced me. I could leave tomorrow. I could get a shitty studio in Minneapolis for $1,400 a month and eat ramen every night and be broke but at least I’d be somewhere. But I don’t. I stay. I make spreadsheets about my savings account. I tell myself I’m being responsible and strategic and smart, and meanwhile I’m twenty-five years old and my only consistent social interaction is a video call with my boss and my mom’s church group invites.”

“So… leave?”

And there it is. The question that sounds so simple from Chicago.

“I can’t just—it’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” Clara stops. Tries to find words for the trap. “Because I have forty-two hundred dollars in savings and my student loan payment is three-forty a month and if I move to the Cities that savings is gone in six months and then what? I’m broke and lonely instead of just lonely? At least here I’m building something. At least here I’m—”

“Waiting?”

The word lands like a punch.

“Waiting for what?” Meredith’s voice is gentler now. “Like actually, what are you waiting for? Because from here it looks like you’re strategically planning for a life you’re not actually living.”

Clara closes her eyes. The apartment hums around her. Space heater. Refrigerator. The building’s ancient pipes doing their nightly settling. The specific sounds of loneliness at 10:52 PM in January.

“I don’t know,” she finally says. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for.”

“Come visit,” Meredith says. “Seriously. Come next weekend. Sleep on my couch. Let me take you out. Let me show you what’s possible.”

“Maybe.”

“Clara.”

“I’ll think about it.”

They talk for a few more minutes—surface stuff, safe stuff, the conversation equivalent of backing away from the cliff edge. When they hang up, Clara stares at her phone.

Opens Zillow.

Types “Minneapolis studio apartments.”

Scrolls through listings she’s memorized. $1,350. $1,425. $1,500 if you want a place where the bathroom isn’t literally in the kitchen.

Opens her banking app.

$4,237.18 in savings.

Does the math she’s done five hundred times. First month, last month, security deposit. Moving costs. Higher grocery bills. Gas to drive back to Janesville for the job she’d have to keep because she can’t afford to job hunt while moving.

Closes all the apps.

Puts her phone face-down on the coffee table.

The show’s still playing. Some sitcom she’s seen three times. The laugh track sounds like it’s mocking her.

She turns it off.

Lies in the dark.

Listens to the building settle and the wind hit her window and Mr. Peterson’s back porch light click on across the street—11:00 exactly, same time every night—and she thinks about Meredith’s question.

What are you waiting for?

Friday, 7:18 PM: The Driveway

Clara’s sitting in her car in her own driveway with the engine running and the heat blasting and Spotify playing that sad indie playlist that makes loneliness feel like an aesthetic choice instead of a chronic condition.

She just got back from Indian Island Winery. Drove twelve miles to sit in a corner booth nursing a single glass of Frontenac through ninety minutes of open mic night. Watched retired couples on date nights. Watched multi-generational families with toddlers and grandparents. Watched the same barista who always works Fridays give her that look—the one that says I see you here alone every week and I feel sorry for you.

Nobody her age walked through the door.

She knew nobody would. She goes anyway. Every Friday. Some kind of ritual self-punishment disguised as “putting herself out there.”

The dashboard clock says 7:21 now.

If she goes inside, she’ll heat up leftovers. Watch something. Text the group chat from college that’s 90% memes and 10% “we should plan a reunion!” messages that never materialize into calendar invites. Go to bed at 10:30 because what else is there.

She could drive to Mankato. Twenty minutes. There’s a board game night at that brewery. She’s been exactly once. Knew nobody. Spent two hours pretending to care about Settlers of Catan while everyone else bantered with the ease of people who see each other every week. Left feeling lonelier than when she arrived.

But maybe tonight would be different.

(It wouldn’t be different.)

Her phone buzzes. Mom: Reminder about church potluck Sunday! Pastor Jim’s wife is bringing her famous seven-layer dip!

Clara drops her phone in the cupholder. Puts her forehead on the steering wheel.

And something rises in her chest. Something hot and sharp and terrifying.

She starts laughing.

Not happy laughing. Not even sad laughing. Some third thing. Some sound that’s half-laugh and half-scream and fully unhinged.

Because here she is. Twenty-five years old. College degree on the wall of an apartment that smells like frozen pizza and loneliness. Remote job that pays enough to save money but not enough to build a life. Sitting in her car at 7:24 PM on a Friday night in Janesville, Minnesota, population 2,300, median age for women nearly 40, trying to decide if she has the energy to drive twenty minutes to play board games with strangers who’ll be polite but never become friends, or if she should just go inside and surrender to another weekend of absolutely fucking nothing.

This is it. This is the life she chose. The responsible choice. The strategic choice. The smart choice.

She’s being smart all the way into oblivion.

The laughing turns into something else. She’s crying now. Full-body crying. The kind that makes your ribs hurt. The kind you’ve been holding back for weeks, months, maybe years.

She cries for the coffee shop that closed. For the girl with the laptop she never talked to. For every library event where she was honey and sweetie instead of her own name. For Madison’s engagement ring and Tyler’s third kid and Jessie’s rooftop bar. For Meredith in Chicago asking what she’s waiting for. For the $4,237.18 in savings that’s supposed to mean something but mostly just means she’s good at delaying a life.

She cries for the version of twenty-five she was promised and the version she’s living and the howling void between them.

When she’s done, she’s empty. Hollowed out. Her face is wet and her nose is running and her mascara is probably destroyed and she doesn’t care because there’s nobody here to see her and that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

She wipes her face with her sleeve.

Looks at her apartment. Light on in the kitchen window. Empty rooms waiting for her.

Looks at the road leading out of Janesville. To Mankato. To Minneapolis. To anywhere.

7:37 now.

She turns off the car.

Goes inside.

Because the truth is, she’s not ready. Not tonight. Maybe not for months. Maybe longer.

But something shifted in the crying. Some understanding.

She’s not waiting for permission. She’s not waiting for the perfect moment. She’s not waiting for the savings account to hit some magic number that makes everything make sense.

She’s just… scared.

And that’s different from not knowing. That’s different from being stuck.

That’s just being human.

What the Ceiling Knows: 2:47 AM

Clara’s awake again.

The water stain that looks like crying Ohio is still there. Mr. Peterson’s porch light is off—he turns it off at midnight, on again at 6:00 AM, off again at 9:00. She’s learned his entire schedule through her sleepless nights. She could write his biography based on porch light data alone.

Her phone glows: 2:51.

She opens Instagram. Scrolls. Jessie posted another story—some Sunday brunch place, friends laughing, mimosas, “so needed this.” Posted six hours ago, which means Jessie’s probably asleep now in her apartment that she shares with two roommates in Uptown, in a neighborhood where you can walk to things, where there are people, where loneliness is a choice rather than a geography.

Clara clicks through to Jessie’s profile. Scrolls back. Finds the post from two years ago—both of them at graduation, arms around each other, caption reading “we did it!!! ready to take on the world!!!”

They’d made plans that day. Vague plans. “We’ll visit each other all the time!” and “Let’s do monthly brunches in the Cities!” and “This is just the beginning!”

Clara’s visited exactly once. Jessie’s visited never.

Not because they don’t care. Just because life is happening at different speeds in different places and eventually the gap between visits gets wide enough that it feels awkward to bridge it and then it’s just… gone.

She closes Instagram.

Opens Notes app.

Stares at the blank page.

Types: What am I waiting for?

Deletes it.

Types: Things I know at 2:54 AM

Leaves the cursor blinking.

What does she know?

She knows Mr. Peterson’s schedule. She knows the exact sound her space heater makes when it’s about to shut off. She knows which frozen pizzas are the best value at the Janesville grocery store. She knows how to look busy on video calls. She knows how to deflect her mom’s questions about dating. She knows the drive to Mankato well enough to do it half-asleep. She knows the library’s event calendar. She knows the look the Indian Island Winery barista gives her every Friday.

She knows how to survive.

But survival isn’t the same thing as living.

Her fingers hover over the keyboard.

Types: I’m scared that if I leave I’ll fail.

I’m scared that if I stay I’ll disappear.

I’m scared that the right answer exists and I’m too broken to see it.

I’m scared that there is no right answer.

I’m scared that everyone else figured out the cheat code for your twenties and I missed the day they handed it out.

I’m scared of being 35 and still sitting in this apartment wondering when my life starts.

She stares at what she wrote.

Adds one more line:

I’m scared of not being scared.

Locks her phone.

Puts it face down.

The ceiling doesn’t have answers. It never has. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the ceiling’s job isn’t to give answers—it’s just to be there while you figure out the questions.

Clara closes her eyes.

Sleep doesn’t come.

But morning will.

It always does.

The Snow Blower Starts at 6:47

Three weeks later.

Clara’s awake. She’s been awake since 5:15 this time. Didn’t bother trying to sleep. Just made coffee at 5:30 and sat at her kitchen table with her laptop and opened a document she’s been avoiding.

It’s titled: Apartments – For Real This Time.

Not Zillow. Not fantasy browsing. An actual spreadsheet with actual numbers. First month rent. Security deposit. Moving truck rental. What she’d need to break even in Minneapolis versus what she’s saved.

The math still sucks. The math has always sucked. But the math isn’t the thing that’s been stopping her.

Mr. Peterson’s snow blower starts.

6:47 exactly.

Clara looks out her window. Watches him clear his driveway with meticulous precision. Same path. Same pattern. Every day the same.

She used to think he was sad. Widowed guy alone in a house too big, filling his days with snow blowing and porch lights and rigid schedules because routine is the only thing holding back the void.

Maybe he is sad.

Or maybe he just figured out what makes sense for him and stopped apologizing for it.

Her phone buzzes. Meredith: You coming next weekend or what?

Clara looks at her spreadsheet. At her bank account. At the apartment listings she’s actually circled this time.

At the window. At Mr. Peterson finishing his driveway, putting the snow blower away in his garage, walking back to his house with the careful steps of someone who’s done this exact thing a thousand times and will do it a thousand more.

She thinks about the library. About the winery. About sitting in her car at 7:18 PM trying to decide if tonight’s the night she drives to Mankato or surrenders to nothing.

About crying in her driveway with the heat blasting and the truth finally breaking through:

She’s not stuck. She’s scared.

And scared is different from broken.

Scared is just… human.

Clara closes the spreadsheet.

Opens a new message to Meredith.

Types: Yeah. I’m coming.

Hovers over send.

Her coffee’s getting cold. Her video call with Diane starts in forty-seven minutes. Mr. Peterson’s back inside now, his house quiet again until whatever time he emerges for his afternoon walk—1:30, she knows, she’s memorized his whole schedule.

The cursor blinks.

She hits send.

The message goes through.

Nothing explodes. The apartment doesn’t transform. Mr. Peterson’s house stays quiet. The snow on East North Street stays white and blank and February.

But something’s different.

Not fixed. Not solved. Not suddenly better.

Just… different.

Clara drinks her cold coffee.

Opens her laptop for work.

The snow blower will start again tomorrow at 6:47.

But tomorrow, she might not be here to hear it.

Or she might be here for six more months while she saves more and plans better and gets her shit together.

Or she might be here forever and figure out how to build a life in the gaps between what’s supposed to be.

She doesn’t know yet.

But for the first time in three years, not knowing feels less like failing and more like… beginning.

The water stain on her ceiling still looks like Ohio crying.

But Ohio’s always crying.

That’s not her problem to solve.

---

“The snow blower starts whether you’re listening or not. The question is whether you’re still here because you’re trapped—or because you’re gathering your courage.”

— The Seasoned Sage