The Price of Being in a Room:A rideshare story

 

Vision is a strange thing.

You don’t always realize what you’re seeing clearly and what you’re not until someone points it out.

That’s how the conversation started.

My rideshare client shared that she had just had cataract surgery and that one of her eyes still seemed like it was changing. The doctor said she might still need glasses.

At first, when they told her she had cataracts, her reaction was, “Oh no, I’m too young for cataracts.” “My dad had them.”

Then she started describing the surgery.

“They make a slit in your eyeball.”

“Oh my God.”

She laughs lightly.

“Don’t think about it. The procedure is very fast.”

Like that fixes it.

Then she mentioned that cataracts can come from something as simple as steroid use over time.

That lands.

I tell her I recently had a steroid injection in my neck, and I’ve had several orthopedic injections in my knee. My mind is already going—like maybe I need to slow down with that.

She says, “Yeah, I’ve had my share of things too.”

Then she says after her procedure, she had a chauffeur.

Then she asks me what I do.

And for some reason, I say:

“Yeah, I just go downstairs and usually the nurse is following me, and then when they exit, they keep reminding me about my chauffeur… and then I just start running away.”

There’s a pause.

“So you don’t meet anyone in the parking lot?”

“No.”

“So you basically drive yourself home?”

“Yes.”

And that’s when it hits me.

I am currently driving her.

Her life is in my hands.

So I backtrack.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Oh no,” she says. “That’s fine.”

Which is what people say when they’re being polite.

I try to explain it.

“It’s just that I’m a single mom. I don’t really have that kind of support system.”

She understands.

Then the conversation shifts.

Not away—just sideways.

I tell her about a friend of mine who built schools in Africa. I met her through a writers group, one of those spaces where you don’t have to pay your way in, you just show up and write.

That connection led me into a completely different world.

The first time I visited her house, there was a pool in the basement. And she ordered DoorDash every day.

It’s one of those moments where you don’t immediately label it as wealth—you just realize you’re in a different version of normal.

She laughs when I say that. She gets it.

She tells me she’s had similar experiences—meeting people who live on completely different financial levels than she does.

Then she tells me about college.

“I had a roommate,” she says, “and she was cleaning the toilet with Windex. And she goes, ‘Am I doing this right? I’ve never cleaned a toilet before.’”

She laughs, but she’s impressed.

“She wasn’t used to it. But she was willing to learn.”

That sticks.

Not where someone comes from—but how they move when they’re somewhere new.

Before she gets out, she tells me she used to be a teacher.

“I can organize things,” she says. “Lesson plans, structure… but entrepreneurship? That feels like something other people do.”

I think about that for a second.

The “other people” line.

Then she asks me about writing. About comedy.

And when I tell her, she pauses.

“You remind me of Melissa Villaseñor,” she says. “You should follow her. The way you talk about it—it’s similar.”

I laugh a little because it catches me off guard.

Most of the time when I mention writing or comedy, it doesn’t land anywhere. It just passes through the conversation.

But this time it does.

Not as validation.

More like recognition.

She thanks me, gets out of the car, and closes the door.

And I sit there for a moment before driving off.

Thinking about how often people are moving through class without saying it out loud.

Not in big dramatic ways.

Just in small adjustments.

What you assume you can say yes to.

What you quietly calculate before you say no.

What you think you’re “supposed” to understand in a room.

And I realize the conversation in the car wasn’t really about cataracts or surgery or even health.

It was two women trying to figure out where they stand in the worlds they keep walking into.

One of us talking about school invitations and indoor parks and trying not to overthink the price of things.

The other talking about fundraisers where everything from fifty dollars to twenty thousand exists in the same room.

Both of us recognizing the same thing in different language.

That class isn’t something you declare.

It’s something you navigate.

Every day.

Sometimes while you’re driving.