look me in the eye, then tell me that i'm satisfied
Saturday October 11, 2008 12:16pm
It's hard to write about all the things that are going through my head right now and not mention this, so I will start with this:
I found out this week that an acquaintance of mine who I haven't seen or thought about in years was killed by a drunk driver while she was crossing the street in Walker's Point. The way I found out to begin with was weird--I don't read Matt's or Eriq's webpages anymore (not because I have some weird personal vendetta against either of them, but because that part of my life that both of them were a part of feels so far away now and I just never even think about it anymore) but I have a friend who does--she met Matt when he and I were going out maybe once? and she still keeps up with what is going on with them more consistently than I do. And she told me. On the phone. When Matt and I talk on the phone, as happens infrequently when I am waiting for buses and am bored, it's become a running joke that I go on for 20 minutes about things that are going on with me before I remember "oh right, how are you." As it turns out, I must have talked to him on the phone the day that he found out and he didn't\ say anything about it at all to me. I think that might just be because he found out after he talked to me, but still. It just is very strange to think about the way people's lives are connected and it is awful to think about the hurt that all of these people must be going through right now, and it's hard to know what, if anything, to say. I barely remember Melissa but what I do remember is that she was always very sweet and that she and Eriq seemed really happy together. The last time I even saw Eriq was a few months ago in Riverwest and I didn't recognize him because he was helmeted on a motorcycle honking at me, and I said nothing and kept crossing the street because I just assumed he was some douchebag on a motorcycle who I was not crossing the intersection fast enough for. I apologized to him later. The fact that the drunk driver who killed Melissa had two previous OWIs on her record does not help thinking about how awful this is at all.
Once you learn one thing about people from your past you get curious about what is going on with everyone else. So I looked at the internet. And then felt like a stalker. And it turns out that one of the people from that part of my life is having a baby and Matt's getting married (I knew about that because I actually let him talk one day) and it's made me think about how stagnant my life feels. Stagnant is not the word I want here, but I kind of feel like--as happy as I am most of the time, what happens next? There is a part of me that the more I learn from work about social work and therapy the more interested I am in making that something I pursue as a next step, but a larger part of me--the part that is starting to win these internal arguments--is so enthralled with my job and the people I work with and the fact that I will probably never again have a boss who I actually want to stay after work for a half an hour talking about the election or the fact that he is quitting and if I need him Monday he will be at George Webb's flipping burgers as a first step in his eventual pursuit of opening a gourmet hot dog restaurant and that he will totally make vegetarian hot dogs for me (ps. this is not really happening) and I just think, you would be crazy to give all of this up. I have not even been at this job for a year. Does every career move have to be in pursuit of this mysterious "up?" Does the fact that I bounced from temp job to temp job for years and am still just starting to feel at home somewhere make me more resistant to this idea of change that everyone else sees as totally logical? What the fuck am I thinking, thinking about going back to school for a brand new career in this economy? I haven't figured it out.
This is to say nothing about the part where OH MY GOD, YOU'RE HAVING A BABY?? And you know what? On second thought I am going to gloss over that part because I have said enough about feeling lonely etcetera and feeling like there is some sort of Life Schedule That I Am Clearly Not Adhering To, and I know that none of this is true and just because person X is pregnant does not mean that I have to rush into a longterm relationship and have a baby because my eggs will dry up and it is more likely for a woman over 35 to get hit by lightning than get married, etc. Because that is bullshit. And I know it. If that part happens, it happens. If it doesn't, I get some cats.
