The Champagne Soapbox

I move apartments this week. Nothing too major of a move, only 15 minutes from where I spent three years and maybe 25 from where I started. I’m losing the comfort of a home I spent four years making in exchange for the person I’m evolving into. I grew out of this place and the deconstructed roads that my car bears scars from. I grew anxious waking up to the same painting I bought discounted and is way too colorful for my taste. An empty room holds a crowd of reflections of that girl who was just simply growing up. Through a pandemic, she sat alone staring at the TV watching the election that could bring chaos to her neighboring areas. Through a flood, she threw together a small box and a manila envelope labeled “important documents” with her fathers handwriting to her neighbors house- now also vacant. Through an ice hurricane, she ran her heating bill too high knowing someone else would be taking care of that charge. Through friends she grew out of, friends she grew up with, she’s a jagged tapestry of experiences and interactions she hopes someone new would want to lay down and get freckled in the sun. The thing that I’m stuck on the most is the newness of it all. The stark smell of packages don’t wear my pheromones, instead a smell of cardboard much like a teacher moving classrooms. Except, I have little to teach and a whole lot more to learn. It would be funny to compare myself to that wall I stared at every morning for the past few years, until all of those years become the final night. I guess now I’m blank and bearing the scratches and holes of the decorations I never assumed to become semantic or worthy of emoting for. Those pieces are in a new place, waiting to be hung in a different way. Carried from a home to a dorm to an apartment to a place those other places were meant to set me up for. Nothing is me, at least quite yet.

I’ve been here for a month or so. In my bedtime monologue, I kept wondering if I’m stressed or not. The weekend gets closer and my mood changes, dreams more focused on having my plans together during free time rather than the bought time I sold myself to make a living for. Sometimes (only a few times), I find myself holding my head with my camera off seeing how full my lungs can get until I let out the most unsatisfactory blow of anxiety. I run out of breath, especially when stressed, and I hate the feeling of drowning from littered responses. I’m fresh out of the water, being perceived as the fresh out of college girl who is optimistic and excited and not bound to responsibility (her parents probably pay for everything still) (they don’t) when really it‘s the personality pack the corporation finds interesting to keep. I’m what they expect me to be, I’m glad I’m what they want me to be, I’m glad that I’m me throughout the whole thing. Actually, I am the most focused and inspired I have been, but I am scared to become blind through the layering drops of water that narrows between my eyes, blurred between outlook lines and meeting times. Stakeholders and goals and budgets and morning meditation meetings you never make because you’ll talk to them in an hour anyway for something more relative to your concerns. You never really outgrow the achievement complex the college institution created you with. I’m just scared that I’m becoming one with the institution now, just a stereotype and constantly proving myself to stakeholders that I am more than a bright eye and bushy tailed 22 year old, still trying to find the difference between us all. And maybe there isn’t, but I hope I’m able to retain this excitement and optimism and fear that I will lose those things. Maybe in a decade or so. In a funny way, this is the most me I’ve ever been. Blind to the recognition I already receive because it’s nothing special, just nice.

I grew up in a town where people came home miserably rummaging the back of their fridge for a bud light. I went to a college where students find more validation in LinkedIn likes than good grades, because those are expected but social praise is an additional reward. I’ve always been a hard worker, but through successful advances to pursue career, I felt awkward. I pictured myself 45 and miserably reaching for whatever beer is left from my last gas station visit and scrolling through Facebook. Coming home to check the mail full of bills and complaining to my significant other that we need to do better. It’s a very masculine approach to take considering that if in fact I do have a family, my inability to maintain a work life balance would also affect my children’s care, or even worse- my sanity. I’m not sure how single girls my age fantasize about marriage, being given away by their father as if there’s a land contract involved in the marital transaction. Nowadays, it’s all I hear about. It’s all I’m asked about. It’s all that anyone ever mentions to me. It’s all anyone ever tries to get out of me. Between spilled drinks and slurred words, I revisit members of the past in my mind and consider plan b. In those moments, they are definitely plan a. In sobering moments, it’s me in a remote location with a rotating direct deposit. In an ultimate way, none of those are me.

I guess this is where I draw a line between 1. perception of self 2. desire of self to be 3. perceptions I’ve adopted from others and 4. desire to be something else. The problem is that I have no way to understand the difference. I think I’m someone who finds it easy to romanticize life. I spend a lot of time thinking, which is a consequence of having to rely on technology for communication without much effort. I think about how my body tossed around all night for me to wake up increasingly more comfortable in the morning, how I have such an affiliation for writing when it takes an academic requirement or insecure attachment for me to read a few lines of text, or even how one ingredient can change the taste of a meal and I know I screwed it up with the salt this time. By default- this makes me a hopeless romantic for anything. it’s just a thing that impacts the self-reflections of myself that make purpose out of novel tasks. I’ve always said that I hate being perceived and limited, but really I just love being perceived as unlimited. Secretive, mysterious, sometimes way too open and revealing. Casual, urgent, sarcastic but serious. I like to think all of those things are me.

I think my hope is that I’m everything they want me to be, just so I can go to sleep at night without pre-meditating my dreams with a decade of experiences ahead of me. I see it very clearly, on the front porch scratching my heels into the chipped paint of the floorboard. I want to be the girl being chased in the field of flowers. He wants me to be that girl too, but I get too tired chasing after a sun that’s already set- barely energized to make it but comparatively more enthusiastic about waiting for it to rise again. I want to be the girl at the bar who orders the same vodka cranberry as the next girl, but when she does it- it’s cool. At that point, I’ve already committed to an all night investment of creating the most chaotic storyline for memory purposes (if memory can handle it) and rummaging through potential plan a’s. I want to be the leader with glasses and free-styled speech, casually mentioning clauses just like they’re written in business textbooks. They know me as someone who is learning to be that girl, coupled with the reality of stuttered pauses and a very gen z way of literally, actually, maybe, like. It’s hard to be truthful to reality when all you are focused on is desire and dreams. Feeling grounded but still reaching above reality- it’s all very me.

Working with people who have the majority of it figured out gives me the impression that I too have it figured out. In a very deep way, the struggles I have are evolutionary bindings between me and the versions they once knew themselves as. I’ll show them every version of themselves between 9-5, being that shiny mirrorball of a fresh face. After hours, I am simply the daydream of a girl I imagine myself to be instead of the physical representation of every bright eyed and bushy tailed 22 year-old fresh out of college corporate female. So there it is. Finally, I am different- at least in my head and on the other side of the coin. The difference between me and the rest of my simulated corporate entanglement: resisting numbness. Allowing myself to be painted as colorful, excited, decorative with many labels similar to those that were gifted to me in much more societal-binding contents like college. Those pieces are in a new place, now hung in a different way. A jagged tapestry carried from a home to a dorm to an apartment to a place those other places were meant to set me up for. For now, it’s placed in an weirdly lighted cubicle made comfortable again by my daydreams during day shifts. A trapeze artist balancing growing maturity and accepted immaturity. It takes a bit for me catch my balance sometimes that’s all, but the performance itself is still beautiful, it’s still me, and once the meeting ends it all goes still.

This was written in a span of a month, between new places and a new job, a very exciting job. It’s a very pivotal time in my life, and it was a response to feeling different from the majority of the very impressive people I work with. And if you get anything out of this, I hope you find this short essay entertaining and at best relatable. Short note: I love my job, but all simulation shifts can be stressful to manage. Also, sorry for not writing sooner. It’s funny how when I only write when I feel awkward with myself. It’s a very me thing to do.