Hello old friend...By some miracle, this link ended up being saved onto my mothers old laptop....which replaced the one that was stolen from my room.
Fascinating. And I was just thinking today .."I should write more"....all well and good but my ass can barely read my own handwriting. No thanks.
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Last I wrote was about my love life. Its been oh, 7 years.
Thankfully, much has changed. I've done awful and amazing things. Mostly amazing, I suppose. I finally rid of the horrid job chaining me down for 10 years. Moved on to an art museum. I stand in galleries full of original paintings, sculptures, and prints so there's constant inspiration afoot.
I've secured a second job at a Theatre. One of those live ones with the actors and the stages...no popcorn and sneaky teenagers to worry about. ....just wheelchairs and snobby 70 year olds. Oh, and sometimes I run into celebrities in the hallway and forget my name.
I had managed to find a wonderful gentleman. Lead singer of a good band, long perfect hair, loves me, cherishes me, cooks for me, and an amazing butt.
Now lets take off the Rose colored glasses.
When I started the Art Museum, I came in starry eyed and determined....This was going to be my gig. THIS is where I will blossom. The retail life treated me horrendously for a decade and I've finally found a place where I will be praised for my hard work and sparkling personality. OH and they'll let me keep my obnoxious pink hair because "art".
Over the course of a year, I got put on special projects, included in events, parties, and work-gossip. I had finally reached the holy circle of "cool kids" that get all the hours and inside scoops. I still have the scars and botched knee to prove it. My boss seemed pretty pleased with my constant willing-ness to jump onto new tasks, entirely open availability, and eagerness to move up. Things were going perfect.
Enter a round of new (and younger) hires about 1.5 years into my employment.
There went my spot at the cool kid table...
If retail PTSD is a thing, I most definitely have it. Ye olde revolving door of retail workers...most don't last 6 months. Everyone was just lightbulbs. Once we burned out, another one was ready and willing to be screwed in. I was a CFL and these were LEDs.
Quickly, I jumped into the "seasoned veteran" role and took the LEDs under my paranoid wing.
Apparently I did super well because these 20-something year olds could run laps around my old grandma ass.
Shit.
I couldn't let anyone see me fail. I HAD to be the best...this was a new start anyways, I had done the impossible and ESCAPED the conservative retail life. A life where once anyone can do something your pink haired and pierced face cannot, you're phased out. Tossed along to the next department who wont give you a chance either, and so on and so on.
If anyone tried to help me with any task, I'd refuse. How dare you imply that I cannot do something?
I was coming off as stubborn. So concerned with my own self image and being the best employee who knows how to do everything without any help and can hold her own.....I had alienated the coworkers I had so dearly wanted to look up to me.
During my brief time in the cool kid circle, I had learned a few things I sure didn't want to know about our boss. Most notably that he is a sucker for attractive 20-something females.
Is this why I was hired? Did he just feel bad for me because he, too, had known the torture and turnover rate of retail hell? Am I even attractive? Bueller?
I was slowly but surely being phased out. Bossman began walking around with select new LEDs for longer than the usual 5 minutes. Putting them on those special projects that used to give me a boost of confidence even being considered for. Now I would just watch from the sidelines and steam. This may have been obvious.
I could feel myself acting out. For I was being taken back to that dark disgusting place I never wanted to be again: Jealousy. Retail life is an actual battle. Who can out-do who and rise above the other, who will schmooze with the right people and get promoted the fastest? Who will sleep with the guys in offices and move in with the hiring supervisor?
My mistake in this particular situation is simply that I thought the museum was above it.
I wasn't going to let this bring me down, no sir-ee I was going to put on my big girl panties and work my ass off and show that I DONT have retail PTSD and I'm NOT jealous that this tiny child flirting with the boss was taking all my hours and cool kid spot!............I'm gunna get two other jobs to keep my mind off it!.....wait, what? You want to move up in this place so you're getting another job that will potentially cut your hours in half? Wheres the logic in that?
Now hear me out. Life is about balance. I knew what was going on at work. I saw bonds being formed hair flip after hair flip. Not wanting to resort to that level, I was powerless to stop it. Had I spoken up, I'd come off as jealous and bitter. I had to leave the toxic environment momentarily. Believing this place I had chosen to give my 100% all to would take the moral high ground in the end and it was just all in my head. With these other distractions, I'd become a much better and well rounded associate who could turn off the paranoia and really focus on my own standing in the organization.
Overworked and malnourished, my behavior at the museum started to change.
During the course of my alternate employment, the few times I worked at the museum it was clear to me that this LED light was screwed in and on for good. I'd try to catch up with coworkers and in return I would get the cold shoulder and feel excluded. No longer was I in on the jokes or the work events...Clearly my plan to become a better associate by creating balance had backfired.
My boss pretended to be happy to see me when I was there. However to me, his smile was nothing short of "I basically don't need you anymore but I have no reason to get rid of you and I like accidentally glancing at your boobs when you're not looking so yea I'm gunna smile and shit but then go hang out with this other chick I hired and give her precedence on projects because shes like, not a jaded bitch." So how dare you fake-smile to my face? It was insulting.
I either saw right through him, or got so in my head based on my past experience with this very situation and ended up sabotaging myself.
Either way, now an LED light is my superior and my big girl panties have holes in them.
BUT HEY - I had that gorgeous man to come home to...the one with the long hair and perfect butt.
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Are the rose colored glasses still off? Good because I broke up with him.
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Consider me one of those indecisive millennials (which- don't get me started on that group, but technically I'm just a few years into the category) who cannot maintain a relationship for longer than 24 months without getting cold feet and a curious heart. This man was so supportive, beautiful, encouraging, and everything I wanted.
He was also jobless, car-less, and lived with his father. His direction was more toward the band he fronted than an actual career. Had I become one of those? Had I become more concerned with adulty-ness than the squishy love-ness aspects of a relationship? Not having a job shouldn't affect the way one feels about another.....if the foundation of your partnership was strong. And it apparently was not. I could feel myself pulling away. There he was pouring his heart out and begging me to hang in there while he improves his life...and I couldn't. I couldn't be the supportive girlfriend he needed, the rock he should go home to, his biggest fan. I was in fact, garbage.
Now maybe you're thinking its somehow easier being the one to do the heartbreaking. There's a misunderstanding if I've ever seen one.
The guilt, the shame, the blood on my hands and bits of heart still stuck to the bottom of my shoes is enough to drive you to at least 3 panic attacks a week....in the middle of an art gallery...during a docent tour.
Shitty part is I still think about him every damn day. We were each others whole world for 2 glorious years. Tis noble to end things based on a feeling not requited.
In other words, I didn't love him as much as he loved me. The sinking feeling in the pit of my chest is there constantly. He didn't deserve such treatment. Daily, I toy with the idea of reaching out, apologizing,
That would go swimmingly! "lets get coffee and act like good ol' pals who didn't just go through emotional hell!"
Today while dealing with LED light issues at work, (so I'm already in a foul disposition) my close girlfriend/colleague chose to casually ask if she could spend some time with him this week and had their texts to show me.
How lovely. Not only was I already in a puddle of my own tears and regret over recent work occurances, this girl had just poured a bucket of muddy shit over my head.
Add in a 25 year old interest who forgets I exist every other day, is probably messing around with an LED bulb, and my life is essentially a shit sandwich.
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If there's any bright side at all to my current tiny life its this:
When I'm not being slapped in the face by nepotism at the museum, I'm sitting at a desk in an office setting up theatre seats for rich white folks at the Old Globe.
This is one job that I got entirely on my own. I'm very proud of this. Given, its in customer service. The very field that tortured me for 10 years.
Being in a performance arts building is enticing enough to keep me there. Plus it pays more than the museum. Which is just next door, mind you. A constant reminder of my failure every time I look out the office window. Unavoidable. But I digress, hooray for Shakespere.
It doesn't make me as happy as the museum, I don't know even half the staff. Departments are so separated it makes me sad. I stumble a lot. I get confused and doubt myself every day.
However, theatre was my first love. before boys and drugs and Steel Reserve, there was the stage. Perhaps I have come full circle and this is in fact, my calling. Perhaps THIS is my gig. Perhaps I had to get my heart trampled on by two places to find where I truly belong.....In a job I'm not in love with but loves me more than the job I AM in love with.
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Today is my first day off in over a week. I work myself to tears at both places because I'm so warped in my head, if I'm not working, I'm being lazy.
Self Care. Must remember this. Must take time to breathe, decompress, reflect, and type all this out. Must stop glancing at cellular device to see if 25 year old remembers I exist today. Should probably paint.
Eventually I'll even get back on social media.
Hopefully later than sooner.
-LE
