The restaurant is gone. The building has been converted to condos.

But the lesson still remains.

I was working, dreaming of travel, but too afraid to quit my job.

Julie was my lunch buddy and comrade in arms—the person who gave me strength to follow my heart by agreeing to follow hers.

My plan was to travel, to see the world, to experience it first-hand. Julie wanted to be a comedian, go to acting school, make it on the stage.

To prop up one another’s ambitions we’d meet a couple times a week and talk about how, come September 15, we’d both quit our jobs and pursue our dreams. As the waitress served up salads, we’d try to serve up healthy doses of backbone, only on this day, it wasn’t working too well.

Fear was getting the better of us. No one thought we should quit our jobs— not our families, not our friends. Everyone was afraid for us and we, unfortunately, were listening.

Deep into conversation, neither of us noticed the Eskimo sitting at the table right below ours. Eskimos are crafty.

They look like normal people, someone you might encounter at the supermarket checkout line or at a bus stop, a person you might acknowledge but not really see. That was the case with this elderly woman—but she’d noticed us and heard every word we’d uttered.

As she stood up to leave she said, “I hope you don’t mind but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. I want to tell you a story. When my son was eight my husband died, leaving us all alone. Now it was the 1950s and I was a housewife. And like many women back then, I didn’t know how to do anything for myself. I didn’t know how to pay a bill. Or run a household. Or drive a car. I was so shocked and sad that I barely made it through the days. But somehow I had to find a way to stay strong for my son.

“So, I decided that come summer, we’d take a cross-country trip. Just the two of us, in our car with me at the wheel. You have to remember these were the days before the transcontinental highways. And women, especially women with young children, didn’t do this sort of thing. Everyone was dead set against it. They thought I was crazy. And told me so.

“But I just got on with my driving lessons and we went anyway. It was the best time of our lives. We had so much fun and grew so close we still talk about that summer. And what I learned was this—get out there and do what you want with your life. There will always be people to be afraid for you. Let them, and then do what you have to do.”

With that she picked up her coat and her check and left. To this day, I don’t know her name or where she came from. I only know that on that day, in that place, she was my Eskimo. She shared her wisdom and touched my life. On September 15, I quit my job.

By Jamie Simons for PeterGreenberg.com.

Read the story that started it all: Grateful Traveler: An Eskimo Showed Me the Way.

Or check out the entire Grateful Traveler Series.

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