Masks

For the first time in a long time, the sun was shining bright when I left for work this morning. It's been overcast and rainy for the majority of the last month, weather that I enjoy immensely. I've always been a rainy day kinda person. Jackie thinks I have a light sensitivity, and I'm inclined to agree. I hate bright sunlight. And the bright morning seems wrong for what's happening. After a long, happy weekend, america is going back to work. Dreary stuff. A few people may enjoy their jobs, but most of us do not. I do what I do because if I don't, the corporations will starve me to death, not because I enjoy it. I hate having a job.

People who listen to me rail against the concept of a job often decide that I'm lazy, or inept, or some combination of the two. If they watched me at any job, that theory would quickly dissolve. I work my ass off, and I'm good at what I do. Often much better at it than the people above me on the corporate totem pole. When I try to, I excel at a job. So why then, do I hate them so much? I'm sure it's at least in part the "living on another's schedule" aspect of it. I dislike the idea that my time belongs to someone else. The worst part of being a grownup is spending the lion's share of my waking hours away from what/who I care about, doing repetetive tasks for people I have no connection to. But that's not the reason I hate having a job. I can deal with boredom, with repetition and small disappointments. I pondered the answer to this question fopr a long time.

Masks. That's why I hate working a job. It's not the work, or the people, or the boredom, or the pointlessness of the job. It's the fact that I have to wear a mask. If I let even a sliver of my true self peek out from behind the mask, someone has an issue with it. Always. Right back to primary school. Every time I say what I really think, or do what I really want, someone's waiting to tell me that my true impulse is wrong wrong wrong. I distinctly remember recieving a report card in the sixth or seventh grade that had "Does not conform" written in red ink in the notes to the parent section. I've inadverdently offended more people than I can count just by forgetting to filter myself. I don't set out to be abrasive or discourteous, I just somehow am. I still don't understand how people have been offended by some things. I literally lack the ability to recognize that what I'm saying may rub people the wrong way. So I wear a mask. All the time. Try editing EVERY WORD that comes out of your mouth for a day. A week. A month, or a year. A lifetime. It becomes quite exhausting. Every second with people who don't make me wear a mask is worth more than any amount of riches to me. Worth their weight in gold. They are the only reason I'm still here. Someday, maybe, I'll find a way to toss that mask in the river and skip away happily.

Anyway, I've reached the Yawkey building. Time to stuff myself way down deep under the surface, slip on that ugly plastic mask, and go to work. Wish me luck.