Stuck

During the summer last year, my friend would ask me to catsit at her condo. I love leaving my apartment and getting to experience a new neighbourhood for a weekend. I also love her kitten, who is adorable. I didn’t even get to use their pool and I still enjoyed visiting her. In the mornings I was there, I’d put in a Nespresso pod and sit on their couch to meditate for ten minutes. In the summers, when it was humid out, I would stay inside and watch movies on their projector.

On one visit, the second morning I was there, I decided to be spontaneous and go out on their balcony. The cat wasn’t allowed out there because they weren’t yet sure if she could jump down onto other peoples’ balconies so I avoided it mainly so she wouldn’t feel like I was excluding her. This morning was muggy and different. I walked out in my t-shirt and boxer shorts with my coffee and closed both the screen and outside doors. I went to sit down on their weather proofed couch and enjoy the view of the street which hadn’t woken up yet. It was 6 a.m. on a Saturday. I wasn’t sleeping right so I was always getting up freakishly early and wasting those morning hours until I could comfortably text people and let the world know where I was and what I was doing. After maybe five minutes of being outside, I decided I had had enough and moved to open the screen and door to the inside. The screen moved freely and smoothly but when it came time to open the second door, it jammed. I caught my breath in my throat and proceeded to panic. My stomach jumped and I worried that I could be jamming the door the more I tried to open it so I tried to take a couple of calming breaths. These almost never work for me, especially not in situations where I’m in trouble. My first thoughts went to my outfit and how whoever would discover me would find me braless and underwearless. It wasn’t the worst outcome from this scenario but it also wasn’t the outfit I’d choose for myself to be rescued in. I was also helped by how hot it felt outside and how comfortable I would have felt temperature-wise, if I had not been sweating profusely from stress and fear. 

The upset I was in this moment was reserved for what I believe only children feel. The feelings experienced when I would turn around in a busy store and my mom would be gone. I’d follow an equally short, brown-haired woman only to realize that she wasn’t my mom. I hated this and used to freak at my mom when she would eventually find me, which she always did within minutes. The damage would be done, though, and I’d relay my feelings of abandonment and shame at not knowing where she was. I couldn’t ask a stranger for help and what was I going to do, go to the check out and beg them to announce over their loudspeakers that I was lost? No way. Even as a kid, this would be too embarrassing. This morning, I had the same feeling by my own hand. I had abandoned myself and all the stuff inside their apartment that was now taunting me: my breakfast, my bra, my cell phone, the cat, my friend’s bed that I was planning on diving into when this was all over. I thought of everything I would be doing that afternoon when I eventually got back inside. I thought about being able to leave the apartment freely to go for a walk down the street I was now looking down at. I was ashamed at my thoughtlessness. I had let myself down and the day hadn’t even properly started yet. Tears were forming in the corners of my eyes and I blinked them away so I didn’t have to contend with my sadness in addition to the challenge I was now facing. How am I going to get back inside and how will I avoid doing this again?

I immediately thought of calling down to people on the street or to the owners of the apartment below my friend’s for help. She had mentioned in passing that they were rude to them before because they had hosted a loud party so this wasn’t an ideal option. Also, no one was on the street because of how early it was. I could wait until more people were out walking their dogs but then what would I do? The updated equivalent of asking the cashier to call my mom? Ask them to go into the lobby of the condo to speak to the concierges there? When did they even start their shifts and did I even know the unit number of my friend’s apartment? I didn’t and wasn’t about to remember it in my stress. The idea of having to inconvenience two whole strangers and one dog this early in the morning mortified me. I couldn’t even picture what the dog walkers would say to the concierge. “Uhhhh, there’s a lady on the fifth floor who is locked on her balcony. She doesn’t have a phone or a spare set of keys to get back into the apartment. Can you help?”

My other options involved breaking in through the bedroom windows but they were locked (by me the night before). I cursed my stupidity. I lamented not having my phone but didn’t even know how it would have worked to call my friend and have her call her concierge to tell them the details of my mistake. Again, it was 6:30 at this point. I had nothing to do so I decided to sit and try meditating to pass the time and to clear my head enough to be able to make smart decisions that could help me out of this predicament alone. There must be something I could do. 

After maybe another five minutes of thinking, I started to do an inventory of the objects surrounding me on the balcony. Besides the furniture and many dying plants, there was a cheap broom. I picked it up thinking I could try to jam the door open with its handle. I unscrewed/broke off the brush part and was left with a two arms’ length of stick. I was like Macgyver. I became emboldened by my circumstances instead of trapped. It was still embarrassing but I managed to spin it in my head as a very annoying adventure. Despite how early it was, I had the wherewithal to wipe down the part of the glass door that was covered in dirt with my sweaty hands, so I saw more clearly what was jamming it. This was hard because the screen door was obscuring the majority of what I was looking for. With some maneuvering of both the screen and glass doors, I was able to find that the glass door was blocked off by a black hanging drape that I hadn’t noticed before. Those hanging wall mounts you see in condos that can be raised and lowered by a little metal chain. The drape was bottomed off with a thin metal rod and part of the black drapery had wedged itself into the crevice between the door and its frame. I, at least, had this new information at my disposal along with the broom handle. 

I had tried opening the door to no avail, getting stopped at a point where I could fit my hand and wrist inside the apartment but nothing more. The cat woke up at this point and came sniffing around where I was, trying to get outside. I realized that her being on the balcony would be an extra problem so I politely moved her away from the door opening and tried to direct her to the material jammed in the door frame in the outlandish hope that she might understand my request and what? Unjam it with her teeth? She didn’t get it so I was forced to close the door completely and try not to cry from the stress. I was so embarrassed that I could get myself in these messes still and not be able to get my own self out. I’m not even that independent of a person but this was forcing me to face my fears of asking for help. From strangers. The ultimate sign of vulnerability. 

When my friend’s cat left the kitchen, I opened the door again and started pushing ever so gently. I could see the drapes getting more jammed in the corner. I didn’t care. I tried multiple times to force my body into the gap in the door that could barely fit my upper arm but I was too wide. I thought about the further shame I would feel if I were found stuck sideways between the door and the wall but brushed these thoughts away. Maybe I wasn’t skinny enough to fit through this thin partition but I had to try. This frustrated me more than ever. I started thinking about all the pasta I consumed in my life and blaming my diet on not being able to save me at this moment. Body shaming myself wasn’t working either.

Finally, I started thinking in simpler terms. What if I could fit the broomstick into the apartment using the gap in the door to unstick the drapes? I sat down because it provided the best angle for my idea to work. I couldn’t see inside the apartment so I was only able to situate the broomstick between the drape and door by feeling around with it. I started by finding the gap in the materials of the drapes then gently pushing it away from the glass door. As it was caught in the frame, it resisted because it had all this backup support. I saw through the glass that I had damaged the drape by pushing against it and it had started to rip. This new development didn’t help me but I was at least feeling more on track. I lowered the broomstick closer to the metal rod and swung in the opposite direction, hoping I was getting close enough to hit on the metal part rather than the material which had been weakened by my earlier jabs. The metal part was stuck. I blindly swung back and forth and felt like I was making progress at loosening the drapes bunching in the corner of the door frame. I didn’t want to feel too much excitement or accomplishment but it loosened enough for me to gently lift out the entire drape from where it was previously crammed. I breathed deeply and slowly, opened the glass door to its full extent and walked inside. I had finally freed myself. I could have levitated with relief. I closed the door again, drew up the blinds and I went back to bed.