Gents Journey
Helping Men become the Gentleman they deserve to be. This Podcast is part inspiration part motivation. We discuss what it takes to be a Gentleman in the 21st Century. We also talk about how to deal with the internal and external battles that life throws at us. So come be apart of the Gents Journey!
Gents Journey
Death Of Piece Of Mind: The One Who Waited
What happens when we leave someone waiting too long? In "The One Who Waited," we follow Detective Grayson through rain-slicked streets of 1980s Chicago as he investigates the murder of Mary Blake—a woman from his past whose throat was cut in an alley behind the Sapphire Room jazz club. But this noir mystery quickly transforms into something far more haunting.
As Grayson discovers cryptic messages left at the crime scene and encounters vinyl records that play without power, he confronts an uncomfortable truth: Mary didn't die because of what he did, but because of what he wouldn't do. She waited for him, believing in a version of him that he couldn't sustain, while he wrapped himself in silence and absence. Through supernatural manifestations—messages appearing in fogged mirrors, radios turning on by themselves, and ash drawings that move across walls—Grayson faces the consequence of leaving someone suspended in hope that never materialized.
The episode reveals how waiting isn't neutral but grows thorns over time. Every unreturned call, every missed show, every promise broken creates a ledger of emotional debt that someone else pays for. The metaphorical "Greenbrier" entity represents how absence rots and silence collects interest. What makes this story particularly powerful is how it distinguishes between grief (which faces truth) and avoidance (which hides inside grief to escape accountability).
Whether you've been the one checking your phone repeatedly for a message that never arrives or the one letting calls go to voicemail with promises to respond "later," this episode will make you reconsider the open loops in your own life. What rooms still hold someone else's breath? What lights have you left on in doorways you never intended to cross again? Listen, reflect, and perhaps find the courage to either turn off those lights or walk through those doors for real. The peace of mind you seek might be waiting on the other side of a single honest sentence.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today we are in episode three of the death of peace of mind. So let's go ahead and let's get into the cold opening. Oh, I didn't. By the way, before we go on the the cold opening, this episode is called the one who waited. Yeah, I'm not editing this out. We're going right into the cold opening now.
Speaker 1:Chicago, september 1987. The rain comes down hard, so hard it bends the light, making the street lamps look like melted glass, dripping across the slick asphalt. Every puddle is a mirror fractured by ripples, throwing neon back in pieces. The alley behind the sapphire room reeks of spilled whiskey, wet cigarettes and oil that hasn't been scrubbed since the Eisenhower years. Inside the club, a saxophone moans low and blue, muffled by brick and rain. The jazz leaks into the night like a memory, trying to survive the notes, barely able to crawl past the thunder.
Speaker 1:Mary Blake is dead. She's slumped against the red brick wall, just below the green stutter of a broken exit sign. Her throat has been cut clean, not sloppy, not angry, but deliberate, elegant, almost, as though even death wanted her to look beautiful. The blood blooms across her coat, spreading wide like wings that never opened. One shoe is missing. Her record bag lies torn beside her, the strap ripped as if she tried to resist. A single vinyl rests across her lap like a final gift laid by the killer's hand.
Speaker 1:Grayson kneels beside her. The rain has soaked him through His suit, clings to his shoulders, heavy, his tie stuck to his collar. The sugar in his mouth has drowned, paper sagging, tobacco leaking bitter against his lips. His hands shake as he reaches toward her, not from fear. He hasn't felt fear in years. Something deeper, something older, something he hasn't felt fear in years. Something deeper, something older, something he hasn't named yet. She still smells like lilacs, even through the blood, even through the rain.
Speaker 1:Black stands a few feet away, arms crossed, leather jacket zipped high against the weather, hair plastered against her cheek by rain. She doesn't speak, not yet. She's waiting for him to. Grayson exhales slow and ragged. His glove slips into Murray's coat pocket. He finds paper, a folded napkin, edges sogged from the rain, but the ink is holding. He opens it with care, rain streaking the words, but not enough to erase them. A poem. I waited in silence beneath the vine where the green briars twist and memory dies. The door stayed open, the light stayed on, but you never came. And now I'm gone. The words bleed in his eyes even more than they bleed on the napkin. His throat tightens, his stomach twists Behind him, black steps forward. Her voice cuts the rain. What the hell is that? Grayson shakes his head, I don't know, but he does Flashback.
Speaker 1:Different night, different bar, not the Sapphire Room, someplace smaller and quieter. She's laughing, barefoot, spinning in a room lit by nothing but a lamp and the glow of records stacked against the wall. Her laugh is brighter than the saxophone spinning on the turntable. She twirls hair wild, a drink in her hand, eyes full of belief he didn't deserve. She says if you ever leave, at least say goodbye. He doesn't.
Speaker 1:Three days later he disappears back into the badge, Back into the silence. Back into the silence. Back in the ledger that promised protection if he kept paying it in pieces of himself. Back in the alley. Rain runs into the cut at her throat. It trickles down her collar, makes her lips glisten like she's been whispering.
Speaker 1:Still Black crouches. Besides the body, she pushes damp strands of her hair away from Mary's hand. She sees something more, not just the vinyl across her lap, the sleeve Across the top, stamped in red typewriter ink For the one who forgets too much. Black holds it up. The green exit sign flickers against the words. They both stare at it. Grayson says nothing. His silence says everything. The hum of neon paints the bricks green, the color pulsing like veins through the alley. For a moment it feels alive, like the whole street is breathing with them.
Speaker 1:Later, back at the precinct, the board has grown crowded Leigh Mather's photo, victor Ramos' file, and now Marion Blake's picture tacked in the center. Red thread bleeds between them, veins stretching outward like a circulatory system with no heart. Black pins the napkin to the board. She circles two words in red ink Greenbrier. The word looks wrong on the board too. Alive, too knowing. Grayson stands a few feet back. Cigarette between his fingers, smoke coiling upward in lazy spirals, his third in ten minutes. His eyes don't leave the word. He mutters at once, barely audible Greenbrier, like he's repeating something he's always known, like it's saying his name Part 2.
Speaker 1:The Vinyl in the Void. The city doesn't sleep, but sometimes it forgets to breathe. But sometimes it forgets to breathe. At 2.13 am, grayson sits in his apartment with a ring pressing against the windows like fingers trying to get in. The glass rattles now and then the wind hits right, and each time it does, the whole building feels thinner, more temporary. He hasn't turned on the lights. Only the lamp by the turntable glows a pale yellow, a small island in the dark. The rest of the room is shadows, stacks of files, old cases in half-closed boxes, cigarette smoke curling upward in loose spirals.
Speaker 1:The vinyl spins on the platter, the record from Marrier's lap. He doesn't remember bringing it home. He tells himself Black must have given it to him, tucked and under his arm and while he wasn't looking. But deep down he knows she didn't. He knows because he can feel the truth buzzing under his skin like static. It followed him here. The record is old and dusty. The grooves roared just enough to give the music a faint wobble, like it's bleeding at the edges. The label is faded, water-stained. But when the needle settles, the voice that comes through is whole, a woman's voice, half honey and half ache. It isn't the voice of someone performing, it's the voice of someone confessing.
Speaker 1:The song unfurls soft at first. Then, steady, grayson sits back in his chair, cigarettes balanced between his fingers, eyes locked on the turntable, as if the record might lift its head and speak. It almost does. The lyrics hum through the static? Where did you go when the lights stayed on? What name did you wear when the silence called? I waited, I waited, I waited. The words wrap around him like the smoke filling the room. I waited, the words wrap around him like the smoke filling the room. He exhales slow. The ash at the end of his cigarette trembles, breaks off into the tray. The needle skips Just once. But when it does, the voice changes. Not the song, not the Menderley, just a crack in the sound, a sliver of something else breaking through. You buried me. The words froze him. His chest locked tight. He lifts the needle, hands shaking, sets it back. The record spins. The voice is gone, just the music. Now, just the ache. He rewrites and plays it again nothing. Maybe it was the static, maybe it was the rain, but he knows better.
Speaker 1:Flashback Another night, another call. He's in his old apartment, phone cradled between shoulder and ear coat, half on, half off. Mary's voice comes through the line, warm but breaking at the edges. She's asking him to come to her show, her first solo gig at the Sapphire Room. I'll be there, he says, and for a moment he almost believes it. But the next night he's not. He's hunched over a table in a warehouse Ledger spread in front of him. We're almost pacing like a cornered animal. The deal is falling apart. Someone's threatening to leak names. The whole thing could collapse. He tells himself. It's just one show, just one night. She'll understand. She doesn't.
Speaker 1:Back in his apartment, the record spins steady, oblivious. He opens the sleeve again, the paper swollen from the rain, edges torn. Something slips out and flutters onto the floor. He bends down and picks it up. A photo, black and white. It's him Years ago, sleeping in Mary's him Years ago, sleeping in Mary's bed, shirtless, hair, muzzed, half-smile, softened, his face in a way he doesn't recognize anymore. He looks young, vulnerable, happy On the back, written in red ink. For the version of you that still deserves this. His throat tightens. He folds the photo once twice, drops it in the ashtray. The flame takes fast, the edges curl, the image buckles, splits and disappears into smoke. He stares at the ash. It was used to be proof that he was once something more More than this. He lights another cigarette.
Speaker 1:Down the alley, the faucet in the kitchen starts dripping. He frowns, stands, walks slow, each step heavy, each creak of the floorboards louder than it should be. The kitchen is dark. The drip echoes Plink, plink, plink. He twists the tap shut, the sound stops. But then he sees it the window above the sink is fogged from the steam of the radiator and in the condensation carved clear as a signature you forgot me. His chest seizes. He wipes it away with the heel of his hand, fast and desperate. The glass squeals under his palm, the words smear and vanish. But the fog seeps back and the message returns. He stumbles back a step, cigarette shaking in his hand. The ash drops onto the counter, smudging black against the white enamel. He doesn't move for a long time, doesn't blink, just stares at the words as the rain outside rattles harder against the glass. You forgot me. The message stares back and the record keeps spinning. The message stares back and the record keeps spinning.
Speaker 1:Part 3. The One who Forgot their precinct is louder than usual when Grayson walks in, but it's the wrong kind of loud. Not energy, not progression, just tension. Stretched too thin, voices pitched higher than normal, phones ringing harder, typewriter keys snapping like they're trying to break free. Black is waiting for him in the bullpen.
Speaker 1:She planted herself in front of the evidence board, arms crossed, leather jacket damp from the warning drizzle. Her eyes track him before he even reaches her, sharp as glass, unblinking. The board itself has become a monster Eli Mathers, victor Ramos and Miriam Blank their names scrawled beneath photos, evidence penned at angles, red thread binding them together like veins in a body that shouldn't be alive. But at the center is something new A green pushpin holding a napkin, the poem. I waited in silence beneath the vine where green bars twist and memory dies.
Speaker 1:Grayson freezes. He doesn't let it show on his face, but Black is watching too closely for that to matter. You brought the record home, she says. Her tone isn't a question. Grayson shrugs, reaching for a pack of cigarettes, keeping his movements casual. Thought I might have clues. There was a note in it, a photo. He lights the cigarette, exhales through the corner of his mouth I didn't see one.
Speaker 1:Her hand grips the marker she's holding, tapping it against the desk. Each tap syncs with his heartbeat. Too loud, too steady, you sure. He nods, lies. The bullpen hums around them. Somewhere across the room a detective radio plays faintly, talking heads. This must be the place. Its upbeat strangeness feels like a mockery against the blood and thread on the board. Black leans closer, her voice lowers. Somebody's feeding us pieces, gray, and if you're hiding what you find, you're not just hurting the case, you're making yourself the suspect. He takes a drag smoke filling the space between them. He doesn't answer. She holds his eyes for another beat. Then she turns back to the board and circles the words in red Greenbrier. The sound of the marker squeaking against the board makes his teeth clench.
Speaker 1:Later, in the stairwell, grayson leans against the railing and lights another cigarette. The smoke rises and curls above him. Questions without answers. He exhales, watching the haze bend around the fluorescent light overhead. Was the voice real? The vinyl skipping whispering words that shouldn't exist? The condensation on the glass in this kitchen spelling messages like accusations? Or is he remembering the wrong way, pulling details from the past into the present, twisting them until they become hauntings? He tells himself he's not losing his mind, but the thought keeps coming back, gnawing at the corners. But the thought keeps coming back, gnawing at the corners.
Speaker 1:Flashback it's 2 am, a different night. Mary is perched on the fire escape outside her apartment, smoking legs tucked beneath her. The city hums below, sirens and laughter, a saxophone bleeding through an open window. She looks at him like she already knows he's going to vanish. You think the job gives you an excuse, she says. But it's just armor. It's paper thin. He leans against the window frame searching for words. None come. She exhales smoke into the night. You're not haunted, walter, you're hiding. He kisses her anyways, but he doesn't stay Back in the present.
Speaker 1:He walks the halls of the precinct like they're narrowing. Each step echoes longer than it should. He pushes open the heavy door of the evidence room and the silence inside swallows him whole. It smells of dust, old paper and metal drawers that had held secrets longer than they should. He finds Mary's bag on the shelf, torn strap, water-stained liner. He sits it on the table and opens it. Inside her wallet, a lipstick tube and a folded index card. He unfolds it with careful fingers. It reads in sharp black letters the Greenbrier waits beneath your silence. The words make his skin crawl. No one else saw this, he's sure of it. He slips the card back into his coat pocket.
Speaker 1:The room feels colder. Behind him a rado crackles On a forgotten desk, static, sharp and loud. Then, through the noise, oman's voice. I waited. Grayson spins cigarette nearly falling from his lips. The radio hums untouched, the static fades and then music bleeds through, thin but unmistakable Echoing the bunny man, the killing moon. The lyrics slither through the evidence room like smoke Fate up against your will, through the thick and thin. The song bends under the static, then dies. Grayson stares at the radio, chest tight, he reaches forward, then turns it off. The click is final. He turns to leave, hand tightening on the note in his pocket. Behind him, the radio crackles back on static. A whisper laughter. He doesn't turn around, he just walks out faster. Now smoke trailing behind him like a fuse.
Speaker 1:Part 4. A Room she Never Left. Grayson hadn't set foot in Mary's apartment since the funeral. It had stayed locked, legally and emotionally, the kind of place you don't walk back into because when you do the air is still owned by someone who isn't there anymore. Today he has the key, the land hoarder, boxed up, most of her things, sent to a few relatives who don't want them, left the rest behind like bones. What's left is silence, soft dust and the ghost of her in every chair. Grayson steps in and closes the door like he's afraid of waking her. The air hits him first, still faintly, her jasmine perfume, still coffee, the sharp final smell of record sleeves mixed with cigarette smoke. He breathes it in and for a moment it feels like she's just in the other room waiting.
Speaker 1:The living room is a time capsule. A pile of old records lean against the wall near the turntable he crouches down, fingers brushing the spines Everything she Wants, by Wham Private Dancer, by Tina Turner, born in the USA. But beneath them, tucked behind in the stack, are records with no label, blank sleeves, the kind that hide whatever truth they carry. On the nightstand sits a book of poetry. A yellow sticky note clings to the cover, in her handwriting Page 27, for the man who doesn't read poems. He flips it open and reads the words blur as his eyes trace them. He doesn't blink, he doesn't breathe, just holds the page and slips the book into his coat pocket. He doesn't know why, maybe to keep her close, maybe to keep himself accountable to the words he ignored?
Speaker 1:The bathroom is next. The mirror is cracked, spider-wubbed from the corner. His reflection is fractured, split into too many men. One version wears the detective's eyes, sharp, exhausted, restless. Another wears a lover's gaze, softer, ashamed, restless. In other words, a lover's gaze, softer, ashamed, unfinished. But the third, the third version, he doesn't recognize at all. Behind him, the shower curtain shifts. No breeze, no open window, just a slow, deliberate ripple. He turns, pulls it back, nothing. But when he looks back into the mirror he notices something new Etched in the glass at the bottom corner, a fingernail, maybe the letters jagged, carved with pressure you left. The light on His chest tightens. He touches the words with his fingertip. The grooves catch against his skin. Real, not hallucination, not this time.
Speaker 1:He walks into the bedroom. The bed is made neat as though she expected him to come back. The sweater lies folded on a chair by the window. He recognizes it, the one she wore the last time he saw her alive when she asked him to stay. There's a record player here too, smaller, portable. He lifts the lid underneath as a note Play me when it hurts. He hesitates. Then he turns it on.
Speaker 1:The needle drops. The same voice from the record in his apartment spills out Haunting and low. The same drops. The same voice from the record in his apartment spills out haunting and low. The same ache, the same confession. But now the voice says his name Walter. He jerks forward, turns the player off immediately. The click echoes too loud, but the needle keeps spinning. The record keeps whispering, even though the power is dead. The sweat on his back turns cold. He slams the lid down. The voice cuts, but in the silence he swears, he still hears his name trailing through like air, like smoke. He stands in the hallway, looks back at the bedroom, at the record player, at the sweater still waiting in the chair. Then his eyes flick to the bathroom, to the cracked mirror and the etched message, staring back For a long moment. He doesn't move. His reflection watches him from the broken glass, all three versions waiting for him to pick one. He leaves the door shuts behind him, but inside the apartment the record needle keeps turning, the song keeps playing, part 5.
Speaker 1:The Light that Stayed On Grayson walks this city like it's trying to forget him. It's late enough that even the bars have emptied, the streets stripped bare, except for the hiss of rain draining into the gutters. The air carries that cold, metallic tang of wet pavement and exhaust. Every block looks the same slick sidewalks, dark windows, streetlights buzzing, with that low electric moan that makes the dark feel heavier. He doesn't remember walking this far. His legs do, though. They pull him forward like he's reversed it, like they always knew where he was going. The sapphire room Closed now it's doors chained, but the neon, the green neon over that awning still buzzes, still flickers, it sputters like it's on its last breath, but it doesn't die. The same glow that lit the alley when she bled out, the same glow that hummed the night. He didn't show.
Speaker 1:Grayson stands across the street. He pulls a cigarette from the pack lights. It, holds it between his fingers. His hands don't shake this time. They just burn steady, like the neon, like the cigarette, like the memory. A car passes at the end of the block, radar blaring faint through the rain. The cars drive. Who's gonna tell you when it's too late? Who's gonna tell you when things aren't so great? The lyrics trail after the car like smoke. They stick. Grayson takes a long drag, exhales into the drizzle.
Speaker 1:Black finds him an hour later. She doesn't say a word at first, just walks up wet boots, squeaking against the curb and sits down beside him. He doesn't look at her. She doesn't look at him. She doesn't look at him. She takes the cigarette from his hand without asking, draws on it. Smoke curls from her mouth, caught in the green glow across the street. They sit like that for a long time. Finally she breaks the silence. He loved her. He doesn't answer. She doesn't need him to. The sapphire rim hums across the street. The neon painting, the wet asphalt green. A siren wails somewhere far off, swallowed by the rain. Black takes another drag, finishes a cigarette, it in the gutter where the water carries it away. She stands, come on. She says he doesn't move. Gray. She adds, voice low but firm. He finally stands Back at the precinct.
Speaker 1:The board was grown even uglier. Photos, evidence slips, matchbooks, ious, vinyl. The red thread winds through all like vines in a corpse that refuses to stay buried. The whole thing looks less like an investigation, more like an anatomy, a circulatory system for ghosts. Black has added a new column. Signatures, vinyl, matchbooks, typewriter notes, poems, each pinned with its own tag, each artifact staring back like an accusation. Grayson adds something to it the photo of his kitchen window fogged with the words you forgot me. They sear at it together, same handwriting. Black asks Maybe, maybe. He says, but he knows it is somewhere in the background.
Speaker 1:One of the young detective curses at his radio, smacks into the static clears. A faint song cuts through phil collins. Against all odds. The words slip between the noise of the bullpen. So take a look at me now. There's just an empty space. Grayson stiffens. Black notices she doesn't say anything but her eyes narrow. The radio clicks off, silence returns.
Speaker 1:Flashback A year ago, snow dusting the city, the kind that muffles everything into silence. Mary's sleep in her bed, soft curled in the sweater. He never returned Grayson's in the hallway, not asleep, not resting, writing. The note is short. Not resting Writing. The note is short, just a confession he can't say out loud I don't know how to be seen, I only know how to disappear. He folds it once, tucks it into a book of hers and leaves. She never finds it. He never comes back for it. Back in the present.
Speaker 1:He steps into his apartment. The lights are off. He knows he didn't leave them off. He flips the switch, nothing. The power's fine. He can hear the hum of the refrigerator. The streetlight glow seeps through the low blinds, but the bulb and lamp has been unscrewed, not shattered, not broken, just unscrewed. As shattered, not broken, just unscrewed. As though someone wanted darkness here.
Speaker 1:His hands tighten on the lamp. He screws the ball back in. The light flares sharp and sudden. And that's when he sees it On the wall behind him, faint, barely visible, a vine drawn in ash, twisting, tangled briar thorns winding upward like they're alive. He stares, the cigarette in his hand burns to the filter, forgotten From the turntable in the corner. The record starts spinning. He didn't touch it Didn't put it on. But the needle drops, the vinyl cracks, then laughter, low, warped, disordered. It doesn't come from the speaker, it comes from the walls, from the ash, from the vine itself. Grayson backs towards the door, chest tight. The laughter rises, echoes, bends into static, the briar twists higher and the light flickers.
Speaker 1:Grayson's monologue there are rooms you never walk back into, not because the door is locked, but because something in you knows it's still occupied. Miri never left her room, not really the mug still on the counter, the sticky note she left on the book I never opened, the sweater folded on the chair Waiting for me to notice all of it still hers. I kept telling myself it was a job that buried her, that the ledger buried her, that the silence I wrapped myself in was procedure, discipline, survival. But the truth is simpler. I was always going to leave. That was my sin. Not the night I didn't show, not the calls I didn't return, not the promises I buried under the job. It was the fact that somewhere deep down I knew I was always walking away and she still waited. She believed that there was something in me worth holding out for. But waiting, waiting in its own kind of violence. She didn't die because of what I did. She died because of what I wouldn't do. And that's the weight I carry, heavier than any file, any case, any ledger.
Speaker 1:Some night I swear the city knows it the lights flicker when I pass. The radios whisper in between stations, the glass fogs with words I've never said. It's like the silence itself kept the receipt and every step I take it's cash-a-me-out, cashing me out. I am the Greenbrier. I see everything. I hear the notes you've missed, the words you swallowed, the promises you buried under excuses. I watch the lights you leave on in rooms you never return to. I count the moments where you thought silence was safety. I'm the hand that closes those doors.
Speaker 1:You think absence is harmless, that leaving is just a choice, clean and final. But absence is not clean. Absence rots. It grows vines in places where people wait for you.
Speaker 1:Mary waited. She believed that was her mistake. Belief is the oldest sin, the vine that strangles the thorn that pierces deeper the longer you hold still. She thought she was a man. She saw a man in flickers and she built her hope around it. She thought silence could be broken by patience. But silence only answers to me. Understand the code. To wait is to rot. To believe is to be punished. To love what disappears is to invite the knife. I left her a gift Her voice, her voice, her ache, a vinyl that spins even when the power is dead, a reminder that forgetting someone who waited for you is to assure is a crime. And I punish crime. She died while the light's still on. I made sure he saw it. I am Greenbrier and I control everything. You know, you just didn't hear a murder story, right? You heard a map of how waiting becomes violence, how absence rots, how silence occurs interest, how hope, left on too long, turns into a blade.
Speaker 1:This isn't about Grayson or Murray. Well, not really. It's about the rooms you left, the lights you never turned off and the people who learned to live in your delay. I'm going to be honest with you. This is what a lot of people missed in this episode. You know the two IOUs, not one. There's there's a little artifact, right, and then there's the debt created by silence. Every unreturned call, every unkept promise is a balance that someone else ends up paying.
Speaker 1:You know the left light on. You know motif in the mirror, on the street, in the club, the light signals invitation that never got answered. It's not romance. It's a record of delay. Not romance, it's a record of delay. You know the vine briar symbol. You know waiting is in neutral. It grows thorns. The longer you leave someone in it, the more it wounds. You know the music cues. You know the songs. I should say the air. Songs aren't wallpaper, they're emotional timestamps. They show you how memory scores your life. Every I'll be there ties to a sound you can't unhear.
Speaker 1:You know there's the difference between grief and avoidance. Grief faces what's true. Avoidance hides inside of it. One heals, the other keeps ledgers, hides inside of it. One heals, the other keeps ledgers. And this is what I would say.
Speaker 1:If you're trying to apply this to your life, pick one, pick one of each, right today, one person you left waiting. Name them. One room or object that still holds your absence. It could be a box, a sweater, a key, a playlist, one sentence you owe. Is it apologies? Is it a boundary, an explanation? Right, one action that ends the waiting. Is it a call, a meeting, a returned item, a written letter mailed not drafted, or is it an email? You need to do and here's the big one One thing to close the ledger, ledger, Ledger. There we go, delete what should have been deleted, archive what must be honored and burn what keeps you stuck. Then give yourself a simple rule Act within 48 hours. No elaborate plans, small, definite and finished.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to say this okay, use discernment when you're doing this. Ending a wait is not, I should say, re-returning a harmful situation. If the room is abusive or unsafe, your action is a boundary and a goodbye, not a reunion. So, as I was looking at the reflections right, reflection one, and we're going to really go into this one okay, who have you left waiting, not with words, but with absence. So here's the confrontation you're going to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, list the names that come up when you read that question and feel your stomach tighten, that sensation. Is your ledger speaking right? What it costs for each name, right? One line like say, for example, you have a name right and the cost of my absence to you was blank. Keep it concrete. You know you missed a show. You don't answer their calls, you don't text them back. They spent holidays alone when they should have been with you. You never got closure right?
Speaker 1:And then what you're going to do is your action, is you're going to choose one name, send one message that does not ask for reassurance. It uses a clean structure. I did and didn't do that likely cost you blank. I'm sorry. I'm not asking you to fix this. If you want a clear ending or conversation, I'm available at blank. If not, I respect that. If they don't respond, that's an answer.
Speaker 1:Your job is to end the wait anyways by letting your message stand and stopping the loop of maybe tomorrow. Right, you have to understand things are a lot bigger in our mind than they are in reality and when you start addressing these things, you start to break yourself free from these things. Remember that. Okay, now number two what room in your life still holds someone else's breath? Here's the confrontation. You walk into a room, literal or digital, doesn't matter. Say their name out loud.
Speaker 1:Notice the objects that spike your pulse. That's the anchor right. What does it cost? Ask this, what promises did this object pretend I'd keep right, and then, in action, choose one. Return that thing.
Speaker 1:With a short note, I kept this too long. I'm returning what's yours, clean, simple. You know you could make a ritual out of it. Really, you know you could box it, label, store it. If it belongs to a real close chapter you want to honor, then keep it. But, if not returned to sender, give it back to them, right, and let's say it's not something you want anymore. They don't want it. Release it, throw it in the trash. Donate it if you can, burn it if you must, right, but only but. I would say this if it's only keeping you from acting now, if you can donate it, if it's trash, throw it away. Last but not least, burn it. But that's really extreme. Just either throw it away or donate it if you can. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now here's the closure on it. You're going to tell yourself this room no longer borrows your breath or mine. I'll say this One of the hardest things like when you're, let's say, in a breakup or you get a divorce, or you're no longer with somebody or friends with somebody, or whatever, and you have a lot of their stuff, you feel their energy around you, you, and it really changes you. I'm going to tell you this when you start to either give it back to them, right, or you mail it back to them or you donate it, I truly believe in my heart that when you get to clear that energy out, it allows good energy to come in. That's my personal opinion. Okay, now, I usually do five, but those are two big ones. And I'm going to say this this is my closing thought on this. This is something we're going to do new, but it's my closing thought Waiting is not tenderness, it's weathering.
Speaker 1:If someone has been standing at a doorway you've never intended to cross again, that's not romance, that's not friendship, it's rot. That's not romance, that's not friendship, it's rot. The story showed you what happens when we let absence masquerade as mercy. Right, you know rooms filled with ghosts. Music won't turn off mirrors. Start writing the truth for us, peace of mind. It doesn't come from promising someday. It comes from ending the wait with a sentence that closes the door. You know a boundary that removes confusion, an arrival that replaces the ghost with a person who can be counted on. So do this simple version now, as I'm thinking about this right Name, one person, choose one sentence. Take action in 24 hours. Turn off the light you left on or walk through the door and be there for real. Either way, close the ledger.
Speaker 1:So, all right, guys, I want to say this we are growing leaps and bounds. I'm telling you we had one of our biggest downloads ever for the first two episodes of this series, and I just want to say, without getting too emotional here, excuse me for coughing it means the world to me. It absolutely means the world to me that you guys listen to me and listen to my stories. It just means the world to me and I'm just so grateful and thankful for your listenership. Now, if you are new to here, right, and you want to support this show, the best way to do it is two things you leave a review if you can, or, better yet, if you can do this, this is so much better. Share this with a friend or family member, right, share it with them. I promise you they're not going to say, like, what is this crap? They're going to enjoy it just like you have. Okay, because I'm telling you we are growing leaps and bounds. Again, I'm so grateful for you to be a part of this. It just means the world to me.
Speaker 1:Now, actually, I got a message from one of you guys. Actually, I don't know if you remember this, I talked about it last episode. I got one again from this episode where I have a. We had a lady who was actually sharing this, you know, on a bus and she actually, you know, sent me another message and she's doing everything she can to support Jen's journey by physically grabbing people's phones and putting it on their phone. So thank you so much for that. And also, too, I've had some messages from some truck drivers I used to be one way way back in the day and I want to say I appreciate you guys out there doing the hard work. So thank you guys for your listenership as well, and thank you for your listenership as well.
Speaker 1:Now, if you want to message me, you know, show me how you're listening to Gents Journey. You know where you're at. I would appreciate it. We can talk about Gents Journey. You have questions, I have answers. Let's go ahead and talk about it. There's three ways. First way, and the easiest way, is actually on the description of this podcast, there's a let's Chat function. You click on that and you and I can have a conversation about this series, this episode, the 14 other series that are out there and the 270 plus episodes that are out there now, which is crazy. Second way is going to be through my email. My email is anthony at gentsjourneycom. And then, last but not least, you can always go to my Instagram. My Instagram is myGentsJourney. So again, I want to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for listening today and remember this you create your reality. Take care.