Living Well Is the Best Revenge

It was all going reasonably well yesterday. I led a challenging meeting with some clients which, when I put it that way, sounds really awesome and grown-up. I was feeling pretty good, driving home from the HQ, put on my happiness playlist, was grooving out to a gospel song called "The Storm Is Over Now," ruminating again on this time last year.

This time last year, unbeknownst to me, I was about to get kick in the crotch from my reasonably well-intentioned but damagingly scatterbrained boss at the Rich People Foundation. I had been hired as a temp to be her assistant, and also apparently the assistant to the anal-to-the-point-of-psychosis events manager, and oh, by the way, could I please run around and get everything ready for these two crazy people without leaving the front desk because while I was at it could I be the receptionist and answer and direct fifty calls a day and distribute a bin full of mail every day because we just laid of the person who used to do that.

Nevertheless, plucky little worker that I was, I did my best, because the words temp-to-hire (and by association, salary and benefits and vacation days) had been bandied about... of course, there were hiring protocols to be followed, so would I mind calling the numbers on all these resumes and setting up interviews (and then re-re-scheduling once Flighty McBosslady changed plans at the last minute)... for the very position that I was hoping to get which I had been busting my patootie at for four months.

Until one day as I was distributing Flighty McBosslady's interoffice mail, and distributed a girl's resume to the President, with a post-it on it that said "I'd like to make her an offer." And then later, while filing in the little file room next to her office, I heard her actually make the offer (MY job) to the girl, on speakerphone, office door wide open.

I don't think I can (or at least want to) put into words what that felt like, but I suppose the words betrayal and murderous rage are a start. And pain, and deep injustice.

The next day I scheduled myself into her calendar for ten minutes between meetings, attempted to give her the quietly indignant yet sublimely classy speech I'd been crafting in my head all night, which never come out quite like you imagine them, do they? But, I hope I said enough to preserve a small, stained shred of personal dignity.

Flighty McAssface's response was basically "ooooopppssssssssss". Then she changed the subject to asking me what I "really" want to do in life, you know like in my heart of hearts blah blah chatty now-that-I've-driven-a-garbage-truck-through-your-self-worth-I'll-spend-five-minutes-getting-to-know-you-as-a-person-after-spending-four-months-taking-you-completely-for-granted spread my wings and fly. I sort of wish I'd told her to eat shit and die. But, I kept it civil for better or worse, gave her notice that my last day would be after two big events we were planning were over which frankly was more than they deserved but I feared the wrath of the unstable Events Planner.

On my last day a bouquet of flowers in a glass vase appeared on my desk with a note in Bossy's handwriting "thanking" me for my good work. (Yet another opportunity to invite her to eat shit and die that I passed up.) I remember walking home down Broad Street with the vase in my hands, and it slipped but I caught it, and I was seized with the urge to slam it down onto the sidewalk, hopefully shattering it, and walk on without looking back. I reigned myself in though, and the empty glass vase sits to this day on top of my kitchen cupboards in case I need it one day, like a bag of office supplies a disgruntled worker might steal and hoard, as if a stapler and some cheap pens would somehow make it all the bitter heartache come out equal.

Never mind. It was a year ago, and I'm in a better place now, having more or less worked through the feelings of inadequacy and chumpyness and the homicidal urges the experience engendered, and I have accepted the fact that it wasn't me, it was them.

The point was, I said to myself as I hit the button in the car to repeat "The Storm Is Over Now", that the whole thing is behind me. As Whitney Houston's song goes, I fell down, and I stumbled, but I did not crumble. The point is to keep on moving forward.

Maybe it was the day spent with the clients, who happen to be nuns, but somehow the idea of forgiveness floated into my head. A sign outside of a church said in bold letters "Healing".

I have loved self-help and personal growth type books ever since I was a teenager. I remember being fifteen, maybe sixteen, and reading on subjects like forgiveness and healing, and not really being able to grasp them. The concepts were too abstract, I couldn't really wrap my brain around them. I realize now that at fifteen and sixteen, mercifully, I didn't have anything much to forgive, or to heal. September 11 wouldn't happen until the following year; the various illnesses that would spring up in my family hadn't yet sprung; I was still under the safe awning of my childhood home, blissfully unaware that just beyond the edge of the awning enormous seagulls of bad luck circled, waiting to take gigantic dumps on passersby unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now, as I reflect on, among other things, MamaBear's surgery-versary, as we call her one year milestone on the other end of illness, and other crappy stuff that happened a year ago, I am better able to understand an idea like forgiveness. Not necessarily practice it, mind you, but understand it.

In the case of MamaBear, there is nobody tangible to forgive. I have to direct my efforts toward forgiving, I don't know, the universe or something. Whatever unknowable forces led to that frightening, painful experience. The fates, or life in general.

In the case of my idiot former boss, and all of the clueless windbags that made my life miserable while I was at the Rich People Foundation, it's harder. Why would I want to give them anything, much less a deep philosophical gift?

Of course, I realize that forgiveness is not for other people, it's for me. It's so that I don't keep accidentally expending energy feeling wounded on account of the actions of someone who, it's pretty evident, is not, nor really ever was, doing any thinking about me.

I know it's about letting go and releasing the past and stepping into the future and taking the next step forward. I know, in my head at least, that life is short and you can't spend it lugging around people who dicked you over, intentionally or not - for one thing, they're not worth it.

Part of me doesn't want to let go. Righteous indignation has it's own special pleasure to it, to feel wronged, to feel like a victim. It hurts so good, the way binging on cheese fries or picking a scab or talking smack on somebody does. It feels fiendishly, secretly, mean-spiritedly under-the-trenchcoat good, like "Ha ha, see world, I know this is bad and WATCH ME do it!"

I guess ultimately it's just a choice you make, or have to keep making. You just have to decide that you don't want to be that kind of person, mired in the past, unable to move forward. It's the decision to count your blessings, for what they're worth, rather than the many diverse and creative ways you've been humped by the dog of injustice over the years.

Why? I don't know why. Maybe clinging to crappy stuff in your past is a shield, in way, an excuse not to turn toward wide open and scary future. I guess what non-forgiving does is prevent you from seeing the present with clear eyes, keeps you from living life as you imagine, as the best version of yourself and so on. Keeps you from being clear and happy and peaceful.

...These were the profound and spiritual thoughts I was having when I noticed flashing lights in the rearview. I got pulled over and ticketed for running a red light (by the way it was a YELLOW, which turned red as I was driving under it, in a section of road where the two poorly timed traffic lights are about a hundred feet apart, by the way, but that's beside the point. Actually I think it was some kind of ticket trap, because I saw three other police cars on the same block, one of which had pulled over a car traveling the opposite direction. The borough trying to line its coffers, perhaps, with the proceeds from questionable tickets. Anyway...)

My first instinct was to be like "WHY! Every time I try to enter some kind of zen-like, life-affirming mental space something happens to completely take the spit out of me. AS SOON as I have a little money in place something drastic and car-related and tripled digit comes up to wreck it all." This was followed by blind, shaking rage at the officer who had pulled me over but couldn't explain what I was supposed to do with the ticket once I got it other than "read the back," while I watched another car run through the exact same yellow-to-red light without being pulled over. Followed by the urge to throw things, which lasted all the way to Spangles' house, where I experienced the urge to take it all out on him.

In a Herculean effort not to hurt his feelings with my misplaced anger, I took myself back out for a teary-eyed, rage-filled walk around the block. It turned into several blocks, while I frantically flipped through the mental rolodex of my hodgepodge accumulation of tips and techniques for dealing with all my feeeeeeeeelings.

There was the technique of just allowing the feeling to inhabit my body, not to fight but let it be "a guest in the house" as Rumi puts it. To really focus in on it, "listen" to it, describe how it feels. (Blackness in the lungs and a flaming scowl-mask, if you're wondering.) The phrase "the only way out is through" floated through my head. Then I thought of Anne Lammott, who has written that "Help me help me help me" and "Thank you thank you thank you" are the two best prayers she knows. I don't know how I feel about prayer, but I figured I would send out a big mental "Help!" to whatever benevolent forces might be out there, just to cover my bases.

The pythons started to deconstrict, and my frantic pace slowed a little. Then I tried examining these thoughts about how EVERY time I do this or that something bad happens, to see if they held water. They didn't really, as I'm sure you're shocked to hear.

By the final block, I realized that giving me the stupid ticket almost definitely was not ruining Officer Assface's evening, so why should it ruin mine. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Then I realized that in all that psychologizing myself I had really worked up an appetite, so I went to go get Spangles. A plate of Ethiopian food and a glass of red wine later, I was like "what ticket?"

So there it stands. And I have the following message for the world at large:

Listen, bad stuff that happens, I don't like your methods, and if that was your idea of a joke I think your sense of humor is a pile of steaming doody. I just want you to know that I refuse to consider this some kind of test. The only test I give an eyelash about it my own evaluation of myself.

So bad luck in the world, and any and every person or force that would conspire to bring me down: you can suck it. I will swing back. I will write long angry updates to my blog. I will find a way to make meaning out of you and weave you into my rich tapestry of human effin' experience, and I will win. I will be happy. I will be content. I will live a good life, I will love people, I will enjoy the snot out of everything that I can, I will continue to grow incensed about injustice, and I will fight, and if I go down, I will go down with my arms swinging. I will not stand by and be a passenger in my own life. I will not let circumstances dictate my frame of mind, I will suck the ever-living bright side and silver lining out of every batch of mouldering lemons that I can, and I will survive, and I will live to tell the tale.

Also, neener neener neener, you're a poopoohead and a buttface, go fly a kite, and I hope you choke. Amen.

A Postcard from Petulance

Greetings from the middle of Travelapalooza with The Parent Company. In many ways I have been dreading this week for a long time: a presentation to make to people I'd never met about a topic I don't know much about; two important deadlines in addition, and not a lot of time to work on them; early mornings (never a strength for me) that include a weekend day (a personal blasphemy); being away from my routine and my plants and rituals; wearing control-top hose; and I'll be honest, Bossman? He snores. Loud.

The tricky part of working for the Parent Company is that it's no trouble at all to stick me in a hotel room with them, thereby forcing 24-7 togetherness, which can be lovely, like the dinner and conversation I had with Bossman, or it can be, frankly, a little cramped (e.g. Bossman's choice of the infomercial for "Celtic Woman" as background music at this moment, which as far as I can tell is a lot of really perky women, presumably Celtic, dancing around in prom dresses while playing the violin?) . I'm not hatin' on the choice for his particular life's situation, I'm just saying that a supertogetherness trip such as this doesn't really give me as much of a chance to get away to do my own thang, as it were. And let's be honest, you can have a lot in common with anyone and still not want to do the exact same thing at the exact same time as them at all times for three days straight. The possible exception here is the Twin.)

This trip is something I've been fretting over for the last few days. Naturally, I couldn't just leave it at dread, I needed to add a little soupcon of guilt on top for color. I live in fear of being held ungrateful; the threat of being told I'm acting like a spoiled brat is the kind of epithet that has keeps me suffering in silence for many moons. I have a hard time complaining; I have a hard time not complaining.

So I will disclaim with the following: it's a good job; I like the (usually) flexible hours; it's interesting work and I don't spend my days feeling like I'm wasting away in margaritaville; i've been given a lot of trust/responsibility which it normally takes much longer to earn in a professional setting except that I kind of have a long-standing relationship with the Bosses, what with them also being my parents; also, it's a recession, I'm lucky to have a job at all, etc. etc.

That said... I'm having a hard time admitting that I'm dissatisfied with the current status of things. Which is, whirlwind pace, 6am wakeups, long hours over the powerpoint, short turnarounds, tight deadlines, pressure, stress.

I'll be honest wich'a , this job appealed to me on the grounds that it would be...um, the opposites of those things. Make some copies, schedule some appointments, write up some reports, then go home and live your life.

It almost feels like sacrilege to say that. I am the daughter-slash-employee of two very committed, passionate, motivated, hard-working, hard-driving, high-expecting, high-achieving, long-distance sprinting people. In one sense you could say they are now living out their life's aspirations, making the most of careers they have worked hard in and sacrificed for most of their lives, paths and lives which they have chosen for themselves. So if homies are doing the all-night transatlantic consultant shimmy in the pursuit of achieving their career ambitions, it makes sense.

But pour moi? It's not, you know, like that. And I hear them, I already hear all the arguments in favor of said business trip: that it needs to be done, it's good experience, it's seafood dinner, it's travel, it's the opportunity to see knew places and get paid, work is work that's why they call it work. I hear all this, and none of it's untrue.

Buh like...I'm sorry, it's still not my jam. It's as if my momployer and dadployer are really accomplished collectors of an incredibly rare and well-regarded collection of, I don't know, bird's nests, and I totally respect that and I can groove with that. But they're all "Isn't this great? Don't you want to see a whole 'nother building full of these totally different bird's nests? Don't you want to drive all night to go to this really important nest-collecting area and then hang around with bird's nest collectors for three days talking shop? Isn't this rad?"

It's like, uh, homies? Again, much respect for your passion and for the importance of bird's nests, and I am genuinely glad that you have something with which you are like a pig in mud, but the answer to those questions? Is nooottt reaaallllly.

Look, part of it is generational. The babyboomers are all about work, it's what gives life meaning and pizazz. But how to explain that for me, it's non-work that gives life meaning and pizzaz. It's not that I have something so all-fired important to do that I can't suck it up and go live in a hotel for two nights. But for me, this stuff like mucking around with blogs, and listening to music, and having farting contests with Spangles, and eating sushi with friends, and sleeping and walking around watching the city and reading stuff, is what's important to me. Life, man! The good life! Fun, pleasure, meaning!

I found this web site over the weekend with links to all these articles about "my generation," (that is, Generation Y), and apparently one of our main characteristics is a commitment to "work/life balance" and having fun. I'll say that I highly doubt those articles were written by a Gen Y member, because I hafta say some of them sounded a little...judge-y.

It's about preference, people, it's about lifestyle. I will reserve judgment about what might look to me, frankly, to be a busy, stress-y, crazy choice of life, if you reserve judgment about what might look to you like a life a shirking responsibility, entitlement, unwillingness to do the hard work that's required.

What I'm saying is, required for effing what? I won't even indulge in the ranting rave about what can we really believe in in this bankrupt world of unethical corporations that are constantly looking for ways to dick you over for fun and profit and terrorist attacks and joblessness and politicians who can't keep it n their pants etc. etc. I mean honestly society, what have you done for me lately? Why should I feel any kind of allegiance to you? Doesn't it make perfect sense for me to be looking out for number one, in particular my brunch preferences? As one of these articles pointed out, my formative years had a big old flaming set of towers hanging over them, and all I know is that what we reached for at a time like that was not our WidgetCorp key cards. It was each other.

What all of this might just be a roundabout way of saying, and then I swear I'll let it go, is I wish the Bosses would acknowledge that this trip, perks though there may be, is not how, if given the choice, I would spend my time. And that for them, it kinda is.

Long story long, I felt I did a solid presentation today that still allowed me to be honest about my level of expertise (or lack thereof.) I just kinda decided a) as an experienced tour guide, if there's one thing I can do it's speak publicly, and 2) all I can do is go out there and speak my truth, such as it is. And now I've got the headphones in with the inspirational music playing, jammies on, broiled seafood combo platter in the belly, and I'm just riffin' out in blogworld, so it appears I'm going to make it to another day.

I just have to remind myself that it's a work in progress, and I'm just going to keep working on some of these HR aspects until we have all reached a situation of mutual satisfaction. For one thing I already talked about "working from home" more.

To conclude, I decided that I should sharpen my skills as an optimist by starting a new feature on the blog called The Twist o' Optimist - or maybe The Upshot - wherein, after a long, winding and whiny post like this one I try to sprinkle a little fairy dust on it, and see, if not perhaps the best in things, the better.

So, for example: this hotel mattress is durned fluffy; Brandi Carlile is rocking my world right now with her lyrics about have you ever wandered lonely through the woods; I'm typing this on my brand new computer that's all mine and I'm not even plugged into a power source!; I got to wear my big-girl pin striped skirt; I got some new decorating ideas from the hotel; and at least tomorrow I don't have to wake up at 6am.

It's something, my friends. It's something.