Growing Pains

Moving on to Day Three of unemployment and joyous freedom of persuing my journey to literary stardom.

Or...writing something for food. For work. For money.

Had nice tiff with two friends over office matter while having my haircut.

A frightening experience, since this was the first time that I was having it cut this short since I was five and I was scared shit.

I muts have been quite a sight, sitting there, my eyes wide and texting like mad trying to undo, redo or just do something about the situation that I left at work while trying to tell the stylist that I wanted something like Winona Ryder's hair, circa Reality Bites, only longer. I would have told him "Just like Justine Waddells hair in Dracula 2000!" but I don't think he would have seen that.

He didn't cut my hair as short as i'd wanted it since he thought I might die of shock or slump to the ground, weakened like Samson post cut hair.

Waxing poetic?

Should be. I have just subjected myself to the most torturous pieces of literature that I have ever had the necesssity of reading. I won't tell you what because the publishers of said works of fiction will provide me with my next paycheck.

If only I could channel a caffeine addicted ditz, even for a brief moment, that's all I need to earn to pay for my next life insurance premium.

Seriously...

This week is shaping up to be an interesting week for me.

The last time I was out of a job, I had a different perspective on things. I was a lot younger, I hadn't any savings, didn't have much of a professional resume, and no computer!

I was troubled and agitated. I was at a point in my life when all I wanted to do was to get out of myself.

Rhem said it best yesterday at Starbucks.

"You were so eager to listen."

I think I was so desperate for someone to give me an answer that I would have jumped off a cliff if crickets told me to.

Now things have tapered off.

This is the first year that i've had a birthday and actually felt older after, more mature.

And growing, of course, doesn't come without any growing pains.

...

One of the few things that I have heard in leaving the office is just leaving the baggage of "my former boss" behind. That I should just turn around and forget.

I would have loved to just walk away from that office and somehow step into the world outside having forgotten the past nine months.

I don't think anyone can ever understand just how much these people have fucked me up, the trauma that they have somehow caused me.

...

I never fought with my former best friend in all the eight years we'd been friends.

As for my other friends, whenever we'd have tiffs, we'd stop talking for three days to a week, waiting for the other to just cool off. Then we'd pick up right where we left off and things would be fine.

...

It's still pretty much the same way right now, except with my friends from work, who prefer to talk some of it after.

The only difference is that I am scared that each fight will lead to the destruction of that friendship, since all of them are pretty much eggshells for me now.

...

What that fight did to me...it killed my trust in people.

I would have thrown myself in front of a truck for my friends. For a time, I was under the assumption that they would have done the same thing for me.

I trusted my friends completely.

After the fight, I began to ask myself if I could ever give--or even expect--that kind of trust from people again.

You never really know people. You think you do, but you don't. You know this side of them, and sometime that's enough.

Sometimes though, the other side--the one you aren't familliar with--surfaces and you're just screwed.

I got over the "trust issue", but I never really got over the "fight" issue.

...

In the six months that some of my officemates gave me hell since they were sucking up to my former bosses ass, trying to get back to her good graces, I turned into a faction-oriented freak.

Everytime I have a tiff with Xarra or Sally or Laarni, I freeze up and think "Good G, is this it? I'm losing another one, aren't I?"

Maybe it's me with a problem with making up. I have no idea.

There's something seriously wrong when you get scared of offending people whom you consider your friends. Not insulting, but of ever irritating them or making mistakes in fear of losing them.

It's fucked up, I know, but this is how it is now.

If one of the first things that pops into your head whenever you have a fight with a friend is "How am I going to go through life without this one person in my life?" because you are psyching yourself up to losing them...

If you are now wary of trusting people, worried that they will someday hurt you...

If you have to constantly look behind you for things or people, because you are scared for your life or your way of life...

...

When the big-big boss talked to me for my exit interview, he asked me if I was bitter.

I guess I am, if you look at it in a way. It's hard to just get up and walk off to the sunset when you have things like that hanging over your head.

People do bounce back and move on, but they don't do it quite that fast, and it would be unfair to ask anyone else to do otherwise.

...

What scares me the most is having to live with a new shadow.

The knowledge now, wherever I go, whatever I do, they will know. Or will make it their business to know.

I wouldn't be surprised if she's already found my blog and is cursing me to hell or praying for me.

I really couldn't care less what they are doing right now, only that I hope they do extricate themselves from my life, and that I can finally do the same.

But I guess I'll have to live with the shadow for a little bit longer, since you can't escape things like that all out once.

Growing pains suck, but hey. I guess in the end, it's safe to say that it's all worth it.