un-chosen

i've got to get my priorities straight, and try to maintain a little bit of integrity. by that i mean, i should be able to be the same person no matter who i'm with or what i'm doing. nothing should change just because my surroundings are different.

i work with a woman i don't know how to place. she's tiny - less than five feet - with a shock of bright red hair and totally rubenesque. originally from the bronx, she talks fast and she talks loud, and her laugh is all cigarettes and cheap vodka, bawdy as hell and contagious to boot. she knows what she likes and what she doesn't, and will never hesitate to tell it like it is. to your face. until you cry. and she'll never feel bad about it.

i like her, a lot. she takes everything i say at face value, and she laughs at all my messes, which make them seem a little further away.

we are outside on this strange, warm and humid november day. i'm a mess today, no makeup, frizzy hair and dirty clothes. spending my day hoping once again that the evening will bring something worth getting excited about; something that won't backfire on me.

she lights a cigarette and crouches down on the sidewalk where i sit sprawled against the blue painted bricks, gossiping lightning fast about everyone we work with. i wonder briefly what she says about me when i'm not around, but decide that i don't care all that much, and i've given the workplace little to work with in the last 13 months.

the girl she is talking about is a girl i can't stand. someone i've never spoken to, but because she's got that air about her. every time i walk past the customer service desk, her eyes follow me full of judgment and disdain. i know all about this - it's a thing girls do. i know i intimidate her, but i don't really know why. still, i'm not in the mood to be generous and her stares are getting on my last nerve.

"i'm prettier than she is," i say, knowing it's true but not sure why i'm announcing it.

"for sure," the redhead tells me, taking a drag.

"maybe that's all it is," i say. "have you ever noticed how fat girls tend to be really critical of other fat girls? you'd think that they'd be jealous and annoyed at the skinny little girls, band together against the beauty myth, but instead they're just all critical of each other. maybe she doesn't like that i'm confident."

the fact that i needed to announce my physical superiority over hers belies my proclaimed confidence. i'm so tired.

later that day, the girl in question would speak to me for the first time. she was surprisingly friendly, but my patience was thin.

tonight, i had that feeling rise up in me again. i'm prettier than she is, i thought. it didn't make me feel better at all, and i stopped it short, because spacing between the eyes and a nicely shaped nose do not a whole make. and i know it.

i've often fallen into the trap of thinking that if i could only be prettier, things would be better. i wouldn't be lonely, i wouldn't mess up so much. as though a smaller waist size or a boyfriend would magically make me less lazy, more motivated and less likely to fall to delusions of grandeur and invention. but with the acknowledgement of the fact that looks aren't everything comes something far more sinister. the knowledge that if it isn't about the way that i look, then it might just be about who i am.

i've never questioned myself like this before. i've never thought, what's wrong with me, that he doesn't want me? it's always been, what the hell is wrong with him? how could he possibly not want me?

i don't like this feeling, and i don't like the situation that brought it about. and i don't really know how to get rid of either, other than to ignore them.

so that's the path i think i've chosen (although i gave lengthy consideration to something much more passive aggressive). i have a paper due tomorrow. i'll throw myself into academics and pretend that nothing ever happened. ever. and i mean that in a since oh, 1999, kind of way.

emma thompson would be so proud.