I had a thirteen hour work day: 3 presentations starting at 8am, 1,088 surveys entered for 1 of my 4 presentation topics I covered this year, 73 miles in the Chevy transporting girls from Redwood City to Oakland and back for a rock-climbing 'gateway' adventure, 1 cover letter/resume flung out to the cyber gods, $834.76 charged via the visa for a new - hopefully functioning - laptop, all on a mere 2 cups of coffee. My shoulders are imploding into my lungs and my spine is contorting into unnatural, rather spontaneous angles as gravity pushes my fightless body evermore closer to the center of things. I'm operating on 5 hours of sleep, yet my eyes are wide open and drying out, fixed to the neon glow of my computer screen - the cocaine to my visual cortex. This has been a day, oh what a day!
Tuesday.
My department had our biweekly meeting. A year ago you could have interrupted our meetings by seeing a dozen youthful souls in a tight room, eating bananas and muffins, lighting a candle in some unpretentious, ungodly, unassuming hopefulness, cracking jokes on each other and generally oozing pride and validation for our not-for-profit work. Back then we only held meetings once a month - there wasn't any damage controlling need for anything more frequent. Present day remix: staff of 4 (one of whom is leaving in 3 weeks) plus 1 new program manager and a phony clinical director. Bob? Sacked two days ago. Jennifer? Bought out by a competing "collaborating" agency. Tim and Amanda? MIA. Danielle? Quit. Maria? Quit. Caroline? Quit. Me? ...me... Those who remain, I dub them Resilient, say, "Hang in there, Meredith!" and the only image that comes to mind is the 70's cartoon kitten who's grasping to a thread at some anonymous height, and only I know that there's no way that k
itten can hold on without opposable thumbs - it's gonna fall nine flights, losing a life every level it plummets until it hits unsurvivable rock bottom. Call me Felix, my destiny is inevitable, yet still I hang.
My department had our biweekly meeting. A year ago you could have interrupted our meetings by seeing a dozen youthful souls in a tight room, eating bananas and muffins, lighting a candle in some unpretentious, ungodly, unassuming hopefulness, cracking jokes on each other and generally oozing pride and validation for our not-for-profit work. Back then we only held meetings once a month - there wasn't any damage controlling need for anything more frequent. Present day remix: staff of 4 (one of whom is leaving in 3 weeks) plus 1 new program manager and a phony clinical director. Bob? Sacked two days ago. Jennifer? Bought out by a competing "collaborating" agency. Tim and Amanda? MIA. Danielle? Quit. Maria? Quit. Caroline? Quit. Me? ...me... Those who remain, I dub them Resilient, say, "Hang in there, Meredith!" and the only image that comes to mind is the 70's cartoon kitten who's grasping to a thread at some anonymous height, and only I know that there's no way that k
itten can hold on without opposable thumbs - it's gonna fall nine flights, losing a life every level it plummets until it hits unsurvivable rock bottom. Call me Felix, my destiny is inevitable, yet still I hang.Wednesday.
As I continued to process my misty future as a dead cat, my Merry-Go-Round coworker huddled over my desk and pressed his voice into my conscience with such assertiveness that I could only tear in response; he said, "Meredith, my dear, YOU need to find a new job!" My own supervisor was standing to my left and only nodded and patted my back in foretelling support. And just then an email from my papa popped up, reading, "Leaders stay calm when there is chaos around them. Stay the course." (Is that the new, slightly more prophetic "Hang in there Kitty"?)
The consensus in all this is simple: I'M FUCKED.
Tuesday.
After my 50 minute commute and a quick and dirty chiseling to my cover letter template, I took a 1.8 mile stroll to Significant Other's casa, with ipod in ears and Starbucks' toffee almond bar in hand, but of course. Through the magical, wondrous Golden Gate Park, the blocks too few and brief, it dawned on my just how incredible my life currently is. I have the One Thousand Acre Woods in my own backyard, and I can walk and jaunt and skip and fly on the multi-specie tree-lined sidewalks whenever I please. My eyes have been open all this time that I've been here, striving for independence in an era of dependence, but it wasn't until approximately 7:14pm that my eye of eyes woke up. 32 shades of green! That's what it saw! And little Robins bopping in moist earth, and leaves dancing recklessly in the eastbound wind, and runners siving though my existence, seemingly without any effort at all, but illustrating all the while the delicate sway of their polyester, dry-wick shirts as they bound from left foot to right, their lungs pumping inward and out. The sights called for my ear of ears to wake, opening to the sounds beyond my streaming mp3s and letting the music of my feet sliding across the cement flood my awareness, the distant birds chirping, the chains of a passing bicyclist shift gears, the grass bending over to tickle itself, the runner's fragile pause in mantra-like breathing as he swallowed and tred on. And naturally, in combination of all this sudden sensation, my nose of noses carved a clear path which allowed a scent of warm Eucalyptus and soil and sweat and buttery summer-time pollen to invade the life so deep within me that the "hanging in there" me seemed like nothing more than a shadow.
All at once and out of nowhere I became alive.
I was so happy, so optimistic. I was brimming with awareness, and the joy of it all shot out my fingertips and smile without the slightest inhibition.
After my 50 minute commute and a quick and dirty chiseling to my cover letter template, I took a 1.8 mile stroll to Significant Other's casa, with ipod in ears and Starbucks' toffee almond bar in hand, but of course. Through the magical, wondrous Golden Gate Park, the blocks too few and brief, it dawned on my just how incredible my life currently is. I have the One Thousand Acre Woods in my own backyard, and I can walk and jaunt and skip and fly on the multi-specie tree-lined sidewalks whenever I please. My eyes have been open all this time that I've been here, striving for independence in an era of dependence, but it wasn't until approximately 7:14pm that my eye of eyes woke up. 32 shades of green! That's what it saw! And little Robins bopping in moist earth, and leaves dancing recklessly in the eastbound wind, and runners siving though my existence, seemingly without any effort at all, but illustrating all the while the delicate sway of their polyester, dry-wick shirts as they bound from left foot to right, their lungs pumping inward and out. The sights called for my ear of ears to wake, opening to the sounds beyond my streaming mp3s and letting the music of my feet sliding across the cement flood my awareness, the distant birds chirping, the chains of a passing bicyclist shift gears, the grass bending over to tickle itself, the runner's fragile pause in mantra-like breathing as he swallowed and tred on. And naturally, in combination of all this sudden sensation, my nose of noses carved a clear path which allowed a scent of warm Eucalyptus and soil and sweat and buttery summer-time pollen to invade the life so deep within me that the "hanging in there" me seemed like nothing more than a shadow.
All at once and out of nowhere I became alive.
I was so happy, so optimistic. I was brimming with awareness, and the joy of it all shot out my fingertips and smile without the slightest inhibition.
Wednesday.
I'm trying to remember. I'm trying to remember where the center of things is, while it feels like inertia is pulling me in it's opposite direction. I'm tipping sideways, my head is pulling closer to my pillow as my memory begs to rest. In a few minutes maybe things will make sense again; gravity does have a way about it.
I'm trying to remember. I'm trying to remember where the center of things is, while it feels like inertia is pulling me in it's opposite direction. I'm tipping sideways, my head is pulling closer to my pillow as my memory begs to rest. In a few minutes maybe things will make sense again; gravity does have a way about it.
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