The Jump

The bridge by her apartment has been under construction for months. The orange cones are a distraction and she has a healthy fear of hitting the temporary Jersey barrier. Driving in a straight line has never been among her strengths.

Earlier this week, the safety fences had been removed in preparation for what now appears to be the instillation of more safety fences.

“They took down the fences. You could jump if you wanted,” she had remarked to her passenger. “Well, not you. But you know... anyone could.”

'I could,' is what she had thought, but she chose to keep that to herself. As the week wore on her fantasies became more complex.

At first, she just pictured herself pulling her car to the side of the highway, as if it had simply broken down, and calmly walking to the edge and stepping up and off and then slipping through the water soundlessly. She gave little thought to how cold the water might be.

By the end of the week, she had decided the best way to go was to wait until no traffic would get in her way, run from one side of the bridge to the other, and jump over the wall like a hurdle. Her landing wouldn't be pretty, but it would be pretty fantastic.

Grace, she had concluded, is a horrible way to greet death.

The One That Got Away

She wonders how long it'll be until he's no longer a worn down cliché that she only takes out and plays with when she's just the right mix of wistful and melancholy.

She doesn't need wine to fall into a black hole of remembrance. Her triggers are more subtle and less Hollywood. She carries just enough anger to make sure that one day she'll let go, but not quite enough to ensure that day is today.

She knows he misses her, probably more than she misses him, but she does her best not to indulge him when he falls into his own hole and starts the calling and the messaging, declaring his love.

If he had truly loved her, he would have chosen her, instead of sprouting a bride to be without even consulting her. She wouldn't have found out long after the decision had been made and announced. There's no going back once the envelopes have been mailed.

The vision he had of their shared futures had scared him almost as much her own had wooed her. Hers lit her up, but his made him flee.

The irony strikes her as funny. He had run headlong into the future he was trying to get away from, and now she's engaged in building the life that he had wanted for them, but assumed she hadn't.

A rueful grin plays on her lips as she imagines him out West, in that house full of children neither of them wanted, as she sits sipping coffee and reading their favorite philosophers in her quiet apartment on the Upper East Side.

Vanity

Sometimes, the darkness becomes comfortable.

It's insidious that way. It may make you completely miserable and, eventually, stolid, but it becomes familiar and almost welcoming.

But there has to come a moment when you decide that being comfortable is less important than being happy.

I feel like time is slipping by. That I shamelessly murder time, waiting for something to happen, instead of getting up and out and choosing to make things happen.

Change takes will and time. By doing it, not wasting it.

It's not going to happen by spilling pixels.

Jerkface

I'm not entirely sure which of these chickens I actually am. I guess I don't have to actually choose, which is good, because I'm pretty sure I'm both. 

I'm such a needy little chickadee sometimes. I want people to read my blog, dammit! But I don't really write here all that much, right? But that doesn't stop me from wanting the attention! I'm a delicate little flower, who needs lots and lots of watering, but gives you precious little beauty. 

But that beauty is precious! Tell me it's precious!

But I am totally the other, more snarky, chicken. I believe pretty deeply that it's important to be nice to everyone and be a loving person and stuff, but I believe a little more deeply in a really awesome insult. 

Life is messy and dark, despite my struggle to make it all sunshiney and happy-like. As much as I understand the need for positivity and encouragement, I do think that a world full of only soft words would be a pretty boring one. 

I can hardly believe I am publicly advocating mean-spiritedness, but I guess that's exactly what I'm doing. 

Bitches. 

Know Your Role

Winter is in full swing here in New England, and my creativity seems to be buried under the ridiculous amount of snow we've been... uh... blessed with.

It's as if winter has come and killed everything dead, and having the audacity to create among all of this nothingness would be disrespectful.

We're all about respect around here...

Yes, and...

One of my hobbies is improv. I'm not a great player yet, but I'm a pretty awesome watcher. I love the distraction that comedy provides. Stresses and worries melt away, and laughter must produce endorphins. I'm sure there's a study somewhere by some really smart people confirming my suspicions.

One of the cornerstones of improv is "Yes, and..." Basically, ideas presented in a scene are accepted for what they are and built upon. If someone in the scene intimates that everyone is on a dairy farmer, they're now on a dairy farm and hey! we're milking cows!

It wouldn't further the scene if some malcontent was like, "No we're not! Farms are stupid!"

And yet, it seems, in my daily life, I tend to do a lot 'No, and... now I'm going to go pout like a big baby!"

It certainly doesn't further my life. It makes me a whole lot of unhappy, and I'm sure that there's a study somewhere that says I'm willfully murdering my own endorphins.

One of the books I've been reading posits that there are two kinds of people in the world: people who see problems and people who see challenges.

A lot of us have jobs that train us to identify problems. And it's pretty likely to cause us to be unhappy.

As a manager, it's my job to stand back from a situation and size it up--to figure out how to make things run more smoothly, and hopefully stop problems before they come up.

Unfortunately, it means I am really good at identifying what is wrong.

This isn't the kind of outlook I want to have. I want to retain my ability to recognize problems for what they are, but use that to find the opportunity that results from it.

So, business is a little slow right now. It's winter and we're coming off the holidays, and people perceive themselves as having a little less disposable income than usual.

For me, this translates into less hours at work and a smaller paycheck. This could be a problem.

Or it could be an opportunity.

'Yes, I have a smaller paycheck, and... I can eat more meals at home, improving my cooking skills, and making me feel better physically!'

That's how it's done.

Seeing Things as They Are

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

Anais Nin

This week, it has been really difficult for me to gain a clear perspective, and see things are they, instead of how I am.

It's so hard for me to transcend how I am feeling in the moment and remember all the things I have struggled to learn.

I have a natural aversion to things I refer to as 'new agey.' And things like self-validation smack of new agey to me, as do breathing exercises and meditation and clearing my mind and all those things that are good for a healthy and balanced life.

I know I see things as I am and not as they are, because when I see pictures of myself, I literally want to hide my face in shame and never look at them again, because I am so FAT. Like, omg, someone wire my jaw shut fat.

Except that I'm not.

I'm more like, get off the couch and eat some freaking vegetables fat. The Biggest Loser wouldn't cast me, even if I had an amazingly sad, sappy story that needed triumphing.

I need to run some laps, but I'm not exactly a candidate for desperate measures.

But every time I see myself, it's like there's a fun house mirror filter in my brain that changes the nature of what I see.

I know that so far a lot of entries in this blog have been about my insecurities, but this is where I am right now. It's who I am and I need to process it all before I'll be ready to change.

Process.


Sounds like new agey bullshit to me! ;-)