Keeping himself “morally straight”
I bought groceries today, and as I was leaving what is, for me, an unpleasant experience, a boy scout asked me if I wanted to buy some of his popcorn. I said “No, Thank You” politely and was on my way. I didn’t have to think much about it. I said no for a number of reasons:
- That popcorn isn’t very good.
- They’re not cookies.
- Oh, and the whole discrimination against gays thing.
- Did I mention they’re not cookies?
I didn’t express any of this to the lad, just offered my “No, Thank You” and carried on. Though, as I crossed into the parking lot, I’m pretty sure I heard him say “bitch” at my back.
Guess someone earned his “Asshole Badge” today.
Image credit, the brilliant Snowcrash via Worth1000.com
Existential Crisis
Such a big, daunting phrase “existential crisis”. The Wikipedia entry states that it’s a time “when an individual questions the very foundations of his or her life: whether their life has any meaning, purpose or value.” Well, that sound dramatic. But it also sounds like something any self-examining person has to grapple with everyday. And on some days, it takes center stage.
I’m in trouble at work, for various things I’m sure, but mostly for being an unbearable, rant-filled lunatic. I could be exaggerating, but I’m hardly ashamed. I tend to try too hard to prove myself, and in that process, try too hard to be heard. Where normal people will just move on, I get frustrated, feeling like my head is banging against a wall and then vent at inappropriate times.
In my defense, there doesn’t seem to ever be an appropriate time in my office. Like most of the world, the delivery is more important than the actual message. And even if repeating that message over and over again leaves you feeling lightheaded and crosseyed, a happy face and a tactful attitude is still necessary.
This is entirely reasonable. I’m not blaming my work environment for my volitility. I AM volitile, but in the past I’ve had other avenues in which to shift that energy. Lately – we’re talking months, if not at least year – I’ve been in a funk. Not an angst filled funk of darkened despair, but a dry, wooden funk barrel full of ennui leaving me with a dry cough trudging through an emotional wasteland.
Let me help you translate that terrible piece of writing up there: my angst is misplaced.
Before I moved to Seattle in 2004, I was on an emotional rollercoaster of euthenasic proportions. I’d left my job at my old newspaper in the beginning of the year, I was living off my paltry 401K, I was in love, twice, and I finally, on election day, moved out here with two suitcases, no job and about $400. I had a lot to write about and a lot to think about. And all of it was seasoned with the bittersweet flavor of angst.
So you may think you know where this is going. I need to travel, or fall in love again, or quit my job. You couldn’t be farther from the truth – though two of those things are on my mind. (If my coworkers stumble across this, I’ll let them wonder – or hope – that the quitting is one of them. It isn’t. – HOPE CRASH) But I found that I’ve taken all that angst, build up from that whirlwind and hidden it away, caged it up in the back of my head to stir and simmer and create a bountiful stew full of hypodermic needles – some that give you the good stuff, and some that just hurt like hell.
Where am I going with this? Oh, I remember, misplaced angst. So back at work, where I’m in trouble. Work has almost always been my top priority. I’ve been working since I was 13 or 14. I’m not comfortable not having a job and, having no current boyfriend or children, it was easy for it to take first place. But that comes at a cost. Tiny frustrations become personal affronts. Mild disagreements become unbridgeable chasms. Small personality conflicts become annoyances of ridiculous proportions.
The angst is boiled and bottled in the back of my head, but the cap’s been leaking for a while. And if work is my main and sometimes only focus, that’s where it spills.
Also, I haven’t written much in a long, long while.
Nothing worth reading, anyway.
But that changed today. I wrote a 2,000 word short story that I couldn’t wait to share with a few people. I started working on another and decided to update this blog. I felt giddy this morning when I finished my story. Not because it’s particularly brilliant, but because I released it into the world. I scooped up a bit of that leaked angst and flung it, out of my head and onto the screen.
Ew. Well, but it’s a lot like that. You get my point anyway.
My misplaced angst, the drama of the past seven years is finally going to find a home. Many homes. One of them here.
You have been warned.
