Apex of apeshit
Everyone goes through cycles in life. You go from busting your butt to cruise-control to passionate to frustrated to defeated to ball-busting. There’s no defined time that you can or should stay in each phase, but results do vary by individual.
I’m in such a lazy phase, and I blame the Casey Anthony trial for diverting me for the past six weeks. But as closing arguments are taking place right now (I am unquestionably on Team Ashton), I wonder what I’m going to do once the jury arrives at the verdict. I dunno … do some work?
It’s not that the work isn’t there. Paychecks vary. Sometimes they arrive and sometimes they don’t. It’s hard to get up anything resembling enthusiasm when you just don’t know when there’s going to be a present for you in your mailbox. (Or whether the twunty landlady is holding them hostage and pretending she doesn’t have them. Oh, yes, that happens all the time here.)
And I honestly have no fight left in me. I don’t. For what, to deal with the same old issues with the same old people?
I get it that you should never do for a living what you love. I hate writing now. With a passion. I am an editor by profession. I like editing. Nobody VALUES editors fairly. But I don’t like when I have to write because I can’t take the prospect of hating it for the rest of my life. I don’t want to FINALLY sit down to write my novels and go, fuck this — they will remain unwritten because I’d rather claw out my eyes with a spork.
My field is a mess. I trust no one. I feel that I’ve become somewhat unreliable myself, as a self-preservation measure.
I went on an interview not too long ago. It went OK. I got an editing test. I held back a little bit. And I regret it now. I wanted to shred the shit out of the sample piece. But I got the impression that they were rather proud of their stuff.
And I didn’t even edit so much as talk about improving readability and introducing a Web component. I went holistic. I am a manager, at heart, whether it’s with people or products. Which I think I conveyed. But I know for a fact I didn’t show what a kickass editor I am.
I wonder whether a part of me held back because I knew dazzling them meant buying pantyhose and dresses and heels again. Of working in “workspaces” with “status meetings” and “staff meetings” and motherfucking meetings, meetings, MEETINGS.
Whew. lol.
I could be wrong. I just feel like I *could* fit in, that I *could* dazzle, that I *could* rock the shit out of whatever role they gave me. But did the universe, in condoning the act of putting me out on the damn street at the end of last year, do so to tell me that I need to do something COMPLETELY different?
I’m having a bit of an existential crisis here. I always figured it was God’s way of saying, hey, you were losing your faith … go regroup and try again. But perhaps it was God’s way of saying, hey you — you’ve hit the apex of apeshit. You’ve gone as far as you’ll go on the trajectory you’re on. Your book won’t kick as much ass as the Bible but how about writing it?
I was looking at this photo and thinking, as I do, “I miss home.” D.C. became home. But, National Airport was more home to me than the city itself ever was. I was always at home on the road. Give me a hotel room, a couple “must-try” restaurants and a corporate card, and I’m a happy girl.
Everything I’ve done has been a means to an end. But … to WHAT end, exactly?
I watch Jeff Ashton kicking ass as a state prosecutor. I can smell the book deals and cable-news-network hosting gigs just POURING in when closing statements conclude today. I want to be that passionate about something. I want to be that knowledgeable about something. I want to know the rent is paid and to do my job because I am IN LOVE WITH IT.
The problem is, people will kill your passion, no matter where you are. You learn to function in spite of it. You learn to ignore it. You may even go to war against it.
I got to thinking about a blog I wrote a couple days ago, shredding apart someone I happen to dislike. I’m ashamed of that. I really am. That isn’t me writing that. Well, it IS, but I genuinely liked that person at one time. I truly thought that person was misunderstood and kind-hearted and someone who meant well. Even as evidence presented itself to the contrary, I figured it was situational, the “other stuff.”
And honestly, I still do. It’s hard to be the flower among weeds. Eventually, if you have any brains about you, you disguise the sweet smell. You figure out how to not stand out in that way. Does it change who or what you really were in the first place? I don’t know. Yes, to a degree. But when the weed-killer comes around, will the flower start blooming or will it get yanked out by its roots? The question remains unanswered.
Either way, it ain’t my place to speculate. Honestly, I believe everyone is good, underneath it all. Except Casey Anthony. She’s one hot murderous mess. But there’s hope for the rest of us.
And, while it’s hard for me to remember it sometimes, there’s hope for me, too. I try so hard to be good and fair and honest and trusting and trustworthy. And when I see myself making ridiculously catty comments, I realize OH SHIT, I’ve turned into exactly what I’ve fought against.
But it’s not too late. For any of us. (Except Casey, of course.)
I guess what I’m coming to here is that I don’t need to change careers; I need to change MYSELF. What I do for a living isn’t so critical as who I am when I’m doing it.
I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself. We all do. And I promise I won’t sit in judgment of anyone again. Y’all got to face God on your own, and so do I. And I sure don’t want to miss out on the heaven I think I deserve because I thought I could be God for a few minutes down here.
However … God, can You help me not pass judgment on Jose Baez, though? Even though I think even You might say it’s understandable, I’d rather line myself up for Your graces instead of missing out on them from where I’ve been sitting.