On Again

I threaten this almost daily, at least the days that I have to work. One fine morning I’ll be sitting pretty at Starbucks drinking my coffee, and I’ll finally give into that urge I feel when faced with another day in retail hell.

I will call out, with no remorse, and spend my day drinking coffee and eating pastries while writing my great novel to be.

It won’t be today since I am literally a one woman team with two persons worth of workload to complete. And likely it won’t be ever because honestly, that is not the person I am. If I can function in any half-assed capacity, and if I can already get myself through the twenty-minute ride to get to the coffee shop that’s direct across from work, my conscience won’t let me call out just because.

But nonetheless, it is tempting. Especially when I finally get back on the writing horse again. I would much rather push out 2,000 or more words sitting here then go around in literal circles in a concrete store, marking up the same things I just marked down last week. Which will consequently go clearance next week, because logic?

Do we see the issue yet?

Full confession, I have lost all respect for my job. Rosy glasses are shattered and stomped to dust on the ground, and all I see is cooperate bullshit where ever I look. It’s just too easy to not give a damn about what I’m doing, and breeze through the day like it doesn’t make a difference.

This is not a good thing.

I can write the book on why retail is one of the worst jobs imaginable, physically and mentally and for your very soul. But regardless of the absolute truth that this job is killing me, it is my job. And it needs a certain level of respect and diligence on my part for the simple fact that it is keeping me alive in this fucked up society.

To be positive, yes I may finally write and publish my novel. And it may even be a best-selling hit that makes me millions between sales and potential movie rights. But for now, that concrete prison across the way outside the window I refuse to look out is the thing that is giving me sustenance enough to write this damn thing to begin with.

My point being, you need to keep giving your all in whatever you do. Even if it isn’t entirely by your own choice. Because your actions are the content of your character. And I don’t want to be some half-assed character that only gives exactly what she feels like and when she feels like it. I want to be a full part of this world, just as much as I want to be a full part of my own imaginary one.

I’m not terribly good at it yet. And often I end up retreating back into my head whenever I don’t want to deal with whatever is in front of me. This past week alone I buried myself in stress so much that I missed my best friends graduation party, I still haven’t taken my car into the shop to get the final verdict for fear of being without a car for the first time in years, and though I have an apartment to almost literally shovel out I still crash onto my bed after work and completely shut down.

Don’t even get me started on what it takes to get me out of bed.

If there were a movie based on my life, it would be called Failure To Deal. Of course, it might turn into a fun romp wherein the very things I avoid doing teach me these weird little lessons, all culminating in me becoming this eccentric but otherwise together person and everyone lives happily ever after. Time will tell.