100 words a day

Goodbye to the bathroom where only one of the four stalls had a functional lock.

Goodbye to the convenient store downstairs that sporadically had their supply of bottled vanilla frappuccinos fully stocked.

Goodbye to the JLA Building with its constant news crawl keeping me informed as I walked to and from the Metro.

Goodbye to the overpriced parking garages that babysat my car on those days when I abandoned public transportation.

Goodbye to the illegal access I had to a secure network that I innocently ascertained years before.

Goodbye to the dial-up connection that provided a daily lesson in patience.

This week I will be taking my daily routine, skinning it alive, and devouring it for breakfast. I’m a bit bewildered and anxious, but I know I’ll be fine.

I’m alway fine.

I think its time for me to be better than fine.   Maybe simply being fine shouldn’t be acceptable.  Maybe I’ve set my bar too low?

For years whenever I’d make a wish it was for everything to be okay.  Every stray eyelash, every penny thrown into a fountain. At that time, okay seemed an improbable miracle.  Maybe I should have been hoping for the horizon instead of the shoreline?

There’s always a girl.

I left my apartment early this morning and when I stepped out of the elevator I almost stepped upon the toes of a man I have noticed before who lives in my building.  There’s something about hirsute men that always makes me a bit curious and intrigued.

I was too startled to be shy so I quickly said hello.  He was similarly unbalanced (I don’t know why we always expect an empty elevator) and asked me how it was going.  As I walked way I realized he was with a girl. I didn’t even notice her.

Today my mind escaped me. It sprinted back in time ten years and asked what happened to them.  From my research: one is married, one is engaged, one is single, and one is gay (and married, last time I heard).  Two are in New York, one is in Philadelphia, one is in L.A.

I think I’ll plan a reunion, a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. It’s that time of year when we succumb to the gravitational pull of the families we’ve left behind.

I don’t know what we’ll talk about.  Maybe no one will come.  But I think I need to find out.

There is so much I want to say on my way out.

I want to have an unsolicited exit interview and recount each and every injustice. I should be gracious of all of the bridges I’ve crossed, but I’m too angry to ignore the mistreatment and mismanagement.

I want to write a dramatic raging letter where I scorch those whose incompetence ultimately had demoralizing consequences for me. But, always the attorney’s daughter, I’m wary of the paper trail.

In reality, I’ll leave quietly; thank everyone for their time and help. It’s professional. It’s mature.

Sometimes I hate who I’ve become.

My time here is winding down and I’m doing a poor job of hiding my elation.  Next week I am onto something new. Not altogether new, but new enough. For the first time in a while I’m not scared of this new adventure, just excited.

I wonder: Is fear of a new situation actually fear that you’ll regret not staying?

I saw a friend the other day and she commented on my visible exuberance. I told her that if my new project involved setting myself on fire it would be a step up from the work I am doing now.

This job search has catapulting me out of my comfort zone.  I’m unused to being in a situation where my desires are stitched onto the lapel of my standard nondescript black interview suit.  These unnamed judges stand sturdily in their power position and I find myself trying to pretend that I am not cowering before them.  They have something I want.  They know I want it.  I am voluntarily, masochistically, submitting myself to their judgment, hoping they are merciful.

At this point I am so far from my comfort zone I need a GPS system to navigate me home.

You don’t have time to be my friend.

I’m not going to saying anything insulting like “you don’t make time for your friends,” because I know that’s not true. You make a lot of time for your friends (who live near you). Maintaining a cross-country friendship takes time and effort. It’s requires intention. You can’t spontaneously grab a beer with someone who lives 3 time zones away. I would be willing to put in that time and effort but not if I’m the only one.

You want to know what’s changed between us that’s impacted our friendship? I gave up.

I’m finally in motion. I’m not sure if it’s in the right direction, but at least I’m not standing still. Even if I’m diving into a sewage system, at least I’m getting of my current painful pumpkin patch.

The last time I made a change I thought it could only get better. It didn’t. It got worse. Much, much worse. And although I’ve felt like I’ve aged years since it began, it’s really only been months. So if the next pumpkin patch is infested with carnivorous rats, I know that it won’t take me long before I pack my bags

Mental note: next time one of your friends gets engaged, there is no reason to utter the word divorce in the same evening. Clamp your jaw shut.  Also, don’t look cynical and skeptical when she tells you that she thinks the divorce rate will plummet with our generation.

She may be right.  I’m not as hopeful.  To me the odds are still 50-50 at best and that’s as good as any coin toss. I know we’ve both thought extensively about this. You can’t be a POD (Product of Divorce) and not.

Will we do better than our parents? Can we?

I didn’t tell anyone, not even my mom.  I’m too superstitious. It was too soon for me to know.  It was by sheer happenstance that I found out at all. I was in the right place at right time. And I was lucky to be there. To be within the epicenter of someone else’s joy is breathtaking. Your soul fills with helium and you levitate for days.

They called my mom later that week. They told her because they assumed I already said something.  They didn’t realize how superstitious I am.

This story doesn’t end well. I knew too soon.

I would like to believe in karma, but I am not quite convinced. If we are kind and caring and contribute positive energy to this magnificent world that we get to inhabit, then good things will come our way.

I would love to believe that.

But it’s in the converse where I get tripped up: if bad things happen, does that mean we deserved it? Bad things happen to good people all of the time. People whom, I’m certain, don’r deserve it.

I’m done trying to make sense of it all. The patterns are illogical and too difficult to discern.

Some days I’m just not interesting. I’m bored with myself. I have no clever observations to make, no quirky or fascinating revelations, no foibles to finger. There are no ideas simmering on the stove. No frustrating events I care to rehash. Days where introspection feels like a tedious chore.

So I glide over the surface, careful not to scratch it. I tiptoe around my inner goblins, worried to wake them.

I am playing hide and go seek with myself except I’m only giving half the necessary effort. I’m just hiding. And the last place I want to look is within.

Before last year I hadn’t been to the gynecologist in ten years.
I can’t remember the last time I went to the dentist.
After seven years my car got its first car wash.
I continue to run even though both my knees scream at me not to.
My laundry basket has clothes that have been in it over a year.
I haven’t vacuumed my apartment in 2006.
In the summer my car starting making a noise, after six weeks I took it in to get fixed.

My iPod got sick on Saturday. I was in the Apple store on Sunday.

I don’t think I’m the only one drowning.  I know I’m not.  The others have been struggling for far longer and I know they might deserve it but they don’t have my sympathy.   Would you lend a hand to your torturer simply because his boss might be worse? And so I’m not particularly helpful.  I don’t laugh at awkward moments to ease the tension.  I point out that they’ve already asked me the questions they are currently posing.

I am sure they resent my boundary-drawing, my separation between work and home. It’s amazing what happens when you truly stop caring.

I found out that my grandmother has been busy finding me a new career.  First she decided I should be a doctor, specifically a pediatrician, because I love children so much. Don’t misunderstand me, I like the little buggers, but I’ve never been one to sprint across a room to scoop them up.

The next plan was that I should be a therapist.  Except that I am not a great listener and have the attention span of a tick. Also, I want to smack people who consistently make bad decisions.

I just caught wind of the newest idea: Investment Banking!

I was sixteen. I had chosen not to rejoin the cheer-leading squad after the summer, abandoning my role as heir apparent to the captainship. I was done playing a supporting role in athletics; I wanted the lead. I remember that volleyball tryout. My competitors had previously been on JV, and there I was, an interloper, trying to go straight to Varsity. The sessions were excruciating. I gave myself pep talks. My mind pushed my body well past its limits.

This is my volleyball tryout. I need to summon the gumption my sixteen year old self had and make it happen.

I don’t trust people easily. I’ve seen too many lofty promises cascading effortlessly out of the mouths of recruiters to believe anything they say. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, but I don’t expect to be. They’re describing nirvana. There’s a pond, a gym, and people riding bicycles on the campus (campus!). They should just tell me that the personal trainer that I quasi-stalk each morning at the gym will have the cubicle next to mine.

Hook.
Line.
Sinker.

But then I step out of the beautiful dreamscape they’ve painted around me and wonder if anything they’re saying is actually true.

Yes, I know it was my fault.  This last fight was completely my doing, maybe our final undoing.  But I’m not ready to fix it yet. My tone and timing couldn’t be worse but I meant the words I said.  I am not completely honest often; I mostly bite my tongue and listen along. But sometimes I cannot contain myself. I don’t lie. Cruelty is never my intent but the truth has a sinister way of being unkind. And so apologies become tricky. It’s hard to retract a statement if you both know that you don’t regret what you said.

I don’t wear vulnerable well. It’s an awkward and ugly dress that I put in the back of my closet years ago. It’s still there collecting cobwebs.  Unfortunately, it’s time to excavate my crawl space and dig up that wretched artifact.  I get the sense that interviewing is like dating, and in order for me to make some very overdue changes, I need to dust the damn thing off and figure out how to wear it well.

I normally tiptoe around what I truly want.  That won’t work this time and the alternative to leaving is too depressing to ponder.

The secret is out! I have thin skin. I don’t like to be mistreated, verbally abused, or blatantly disrespected. Sure, I could try to toughen up, thicken my skin so the shards don’t hurt. But I don’t want to. I feel. I feel a lot. I don’t want to be dead inside or even worse yet, accustomed to cruelty.

I do not want to cope, I want to escape. I have been wearing shackles for months and my wrists are rubbed raw. Padding is only temporary relief if you are still bound in chains.

I want to remove the shackles.

Today I took the first step. I can see my next painting and I’m giddy about it.  I’m also terrified.  But this time isn’t like before: this painting is only for me.

This time I have only one goal: to never paint the same painting twice.  That’s exactly what I was doing.  I was stuck, painting the same thing over and over again.

Ironically, I have him to thank for this all.  He eschewed his passion and swore he’d never play again.  He became a black and white version of himself.  I need to make sure I remain in color.

Sunday nights have become very difficult. Sleep, a usual ally, is nowhere to be found. I could get up and search for him, but I’m frustrated. I never agreed to play this round of hide-and-go-seek.

So I lay there and visualize the next day. If only I could stop time by the sheer force of my dread. The truth is I do want tomorrow to come. I’m not naive enough to think that it will be better. It won’t. But it will be one day closer to leaving. One day closer to the light at the end of this tunnel.

I believe that we sow the seeds of our own destruction. We are usually the cause of our own downfalls. I’m trying to pinpoint when I sowed mine. I think it was when I stopped painting. I’m actually surprised it took me this long to break.

In school I told people that my economics studies enriched my art and vice versa. At the time I wanted this to be true, but I wasn’t sure. Now I’m certain. It’s not about the work, it’s about me. Without both, without that balance, my sanity becomes precarious. I need both to function normally.

What would you do to be able to prevent a common STD?

Would you take a new vaccine that’s only recently been introduced? Would you spend almost $500 because it’s not covered by insurance? Would you take it before they’re done studying it, before they know how long it lasts? That only prevents a handful of strains that exist?

But what if that STD is associated with over half of all cervical cancers? What if it’s the closest thing they’ve found to preventing cancer? How much would you spend to protect yourself? How much is your health worth to you?

Her glass used to be half full. Heck, it would be three quarters full, even if there was only one drop of water left in the glass.  There used to be a light within her.  A light so strong that her skin could barely contain it: she glowed.  But somewhere along the way the flame was extinguished.  Darkness has moved in and built a home.

And I don’t know what to do.  Do I continue, willing the light to return, not sure if it ever will? Or do I stop, my muscles sore from the heavy hope I’ve been holding?

I am trying to understand this dating world and it is sending me reeling right back to high school math.  I don’t remember which grade, but it was the class in which the lesson was about imaginary numbers. Or irrational numbers.  Or both.  Up to that point, I loved math.  I understood math.  Numbers were real; they were very unimaginary. They raced towards infinity to the right and the left from their staid starting block, the ever-important Zero.

Alas, apparently there is no logic in dating. There’s chemistry, x-factors, and timing: all things that don’t exist on a number line.

I got a call yesterday from a colleague letting me know that my project was experiencing contractual issues. I was instructed not to go to work because, technically, there was no contract. This probably should be cause for concern. I only felt one thing: glee. If this continues a bit longer I may get an unexpected week off.

The timing of this is perfect. I am currently treading water at work and can’t seem to get myself back to the shallow end. I’ve never been this apathetic about work and I worry I’ll never be passionate about my work again.

It’s been four days and no word. I’m not well-versed in the protocol: three days, four days, who knows. So I don’t know how to interpret this silent passage of time. It can’t be a good thing, but I don’t know if it’s absolutely the worst.

Here’s the rub: I’ve never been one to wait. That’s not the person I want to be. I need to be honest, stop hiding, and stop waiting. 2006 was supposed to be about forcing myself to do what scares me. This completely terrifies me. I guess it’s clear what I need to do next.

I think it’s because of love for my father that he can’t let go. He’s still seeking reconciliation from the man he was ten years ago. That man doesn’t exist anymore; his rage is directed at a ghost. He’s still a little boy searching for his father.

Because of my love for myself, I had to let go. I put my search to rest earlier this summer. I couldn’t heal if I thought there was a chance that he was out there somewhere. He’s not. Someone has taken over my father’s body and I need to get to know him.