When we encounter a locked door, most of us assume that’s the end of the story.
It’s an unspoken signal to stop, to turn back, or to accept that what’s on the other side is out of reach. But in 2009, as I stood outside the theater department office on the final Friday of my senior year, I learned that some doors have more than one way in.
It was my last week of college, and I had just wrapped up my all-time favorite class: The Art of Storytelling. The class was a perfectly fulfilling of exploring the dying art of the oral narrative, but it also weaved in elements of community building and lightweight structures to help us tell stories more effectively.
Each week, our professor prompted us with a theme, and we had to tell that story, without notes, in front of a group of our peers, while sitting in a cozy discussion circle. Following each telling, our classmates would share notes of hand-written feedback, affirmations, and ideas about how to improve that story in the future. At the course’s conclusion, we submitted a portfolio, which included a collection of all our stories, the feedback we’d received, and a final personal reflection.
Suffice it to say that my portfolio meant more than just a letter grade of completion to me. It symbolized this time of major life changes, the conclusion of my college career, and a memory of a time when I felt deeply connected to both my classmates and my own creative voice. Going home to Pennsylvania without it simply wasn’t an option.
But when I arrived at the department office to pick it up, the door was locked. Shit.
Through the office window, I could see the stack of portfolios, including mine sitting right there on the desk.
I looked around me, left and right, as if waiting for a member of the custodial staff to appear at any moment, for the unmistakable jangle of keys from a faculty member coming around the corner. But the building was silent. The lights were dimmed. Everyone had left for summer break. My flight home was the next morning.
That’s when I started to panic. I jiggled the door knob again and again, waiting for something to give, then threw my head back in exasperation. That’s when I finally noticed the drop ceiling.
You know the type I’m talking about – those particle board squares, held together by lightweight metal rails. I knew from my own basement growing up that each piece was entirely lightweight and moveable. But would it work? Was I seriously thinking about climbing up, over the wall?
I glanced around me in the hall. To my left was a table, and beneath it, a trash can. My mind raced with calculations: Was it safe? Would the ceiling hold? Would I get caught? Was it worth it? I decided that it had to be.
I dragged the table to the wall, placed the trash can on top, and climbed up. So far, so good. Carefully removing the first ceiling tile, I assessed the crossbeams and figured out how to pull myself through without bringing the entire structure down.
Then, with one deep breath, I jumped—hoisting myself into the narrow ceiling space. Miraculously, the ceiling did not collapse under my weight. Then, while suspended between the hallway, the ceiling grid, and my rising sense of panic, I gingerly slide the tile out of way on the other side, to make space for me, then quickly lowered myself into the office.
I landed with a thud, and a small cloud of dust, which I immediately cleared into the trash can from inside the office.
Then I simply walked to the desk, picked up my portfolio, and left—through the door, no less.
The door locked shut behind me once again, and I replaced the ceiling tile in the hallway before walking away, as if nothing had ever happened.
Walking back to my dorm, portfolio in hand, I felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. Not just because I’d retrieved something so important to me, but because I’d somehow managed to push past the locked door, the one that had been telling me, This is where your story ends.
The irony wasn’t lost on me—that this entire saga unfolded around a class about storytelling. In many ways, it felt like the perfect final story for that class, a fitting epilogue to a semester spent exploring narrative arcs.
When I go back to my college campus, as I did this weekend, I like to stop by that hallway. It serves as a quiet reminder that obstacles are rarely as final as they seem.
After all, in real life, we encounter locked doors all the time. Some of them are physical, like the one in the theater department office, but most are metaphorical. Sometimes these doors are even self-imposed, reinforced by our own internal running monologue or negative self-talk: “I’m not qualified enough.” “There’s no way this will work.” “I don’t know the right people.”
So the next time you find yourself staring at a locked door, I invite you to ask: Is this really where the story ends? Or is this maybe the moment where the ceiling tiles come off?
