When Inspiration Wears a Name Tag

I used to think every relationship had a currency.

Attention for attention.
Help for help.
Love for sex.
Time for usefulness.

I didn’t have the language for it then; I just knew that most of the people I let close either needed something from me or offered something I didn’t know how to refuse.
And when I stopped being useful, the relationship usually stopped too.

So, when someone new came along—kind, open, warm in this casual, grounded way—I didn’t trust it.
Not right away.
Not even after months.

They were younger. Like… a lot younger.
Mid-twenties.
Worked in the same building. Wore a name tag. Made me laugh.
Had the kind of physical presence that makes people look twice, but none of the arrogance that usually comes with it.

They asked real questions.
Paid attention to the answers.
And then remembered them.

At first, I thought it was flirtation.
Then I thought it was manipulation.
Then I thought it was… something else. Something I couldn’t name.

Because what does someone like that want from someone like me?

Fifty-something.
Tired.
Managing grief in layers.
Good with lizards, bad with people.

I kept waiting for the reveal.
The ask.
The moment the mask slipped, and they needed a favor or a ride or a reference. But it never came.

Instead, they just… kept showing up.

They’d lean against my desk and talk about gym splits or weekend plans.
They’d ask about my day like it actually mattered.
They once taught me how to swing dance in the hallway like it was nothing, just held out their hand and smiled.

And somewhere in that mix of routine and ridiculousness, I realized I’d been misreading the entire thing.

It wasn’t love.
But it also wasn’t nothing.

It was the kind of affection that doesn’t ask for payment.
It was presence. Respect. Mutual regard.
And I didn’t know how to receive it.

Because I’d never experienced it without strings.

So I did what a lot of people do when they feel too much:
I spiraled.
I overthought.
I gave it a name it didn’t earn, because romance was the only container I had for something that felt this deep.

But it wasn’t that.
It was a mirror.

They saw me.
Not for what I could do or give or fix, but for who I was underneath all of that.
The child that had been silenced years ago.

And something in me, something long buried, started to wake up.

See, I had to grow up fast.

My parents split when I was nine.
My mom fell apart, and I didn’t have the option to do the same.
So, I became the stable one. The caretaker. The emotional barometer.
I could walk into a room and read the weather instantly—tension, sadness, rage, silence—and adapt myself to keep everything calm.

That kind of skill looks impressive from the outside.
People call you emotionally intelligent.
Mature for your age.
But what it really means is: you didn’t get to be a kid.

I never learned what it felt like to just be... chosen.
Befriended.
Seen without effort.

So when that coworker showed up—with their name tag and their easy smile and completely baffling kindness—something short-circuited in me.

They didn’t want anything from me.
They weren’t testing me, managing me, needing me.
They were just… present. Consistent. Warm.

And I think that’s when my nine-year-old self finally got the friend they never had.

The one who didn’t need me to be anything but there.

And somewhere along the way, I started imagining them.

Not in a weird way.
Just… wondering.

What would they look like as a cartoon?
What if I gave them a cape?
What if their superpower wasn’t strength or flight or x-ray vision, but kindness?
What if their ability to see people was the magic?

It was a stupid idea.

Who wants to read a comic book about someone in their mid-twenties whose only superpowers are kindness and the ability to peal you layer by layer like an onion?

But then I had another thought:

What if I turned them into a kid?

What if I gave that kindness a younger voice, one that could grow up with readers?
What if I made space for a new kind of hero—one who didn’t need to punch or perform to be powerful?

What if I wrote them?

Not as they were.
But as the version of them that walked into my life and quietly showed me who I could be.

That’s when the story started.

Not with an outline.
Not with a goal.

Just… a bearded dragon.
A spark.
And a part of myself that finally felt safe enough to speak.