Break Me Like a Promise

I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.

                                                                                         Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby


I'll make a list here, of all the things I've ever wanted to do, of all the things I've thought about doing lately, of all the things I wish I had the guts to do, and all the things I wish came naturally.

I wanted to be a professional basketball player. But I ended up too short and not very athletic.

I wanted to be a ballerina. But it turns out that my grace is imaginary.

I wanted to be a teacher. But nobody listened to me anyway.

I wanted to be a mother. But I decided I didn't like children after all.

I wanted to be a friend. But I don't know how to tell them apart from everyone else.

I wanted to be a girlfriend. But they didn't want me to be theirs.

I wanted to be a traveler. But I lost my courage.

I wanted to be a writer. But I lost the words.

I thought of a story between a guy and a girl, and it's really about the girl, but that sounded better in my head, a guy and a girl, and it's set in Montana, and I thought it over for a few days at work, because it's a pretty mindless job most days, folding the same shirt, the same shirt, the same shirt, and it seemed to be a pretty good story, and I thought I could move to Montana for a little bit, and I got all excited, and I told people, "I'm going to do something with my life!" and they were surprised, but not in a mean way, but in a "You're moving to Montana??" way, and it made me even more excited because I thought I could do it, and I thought I could be strong and adventurous and now I'm typing this instead of that story or any of the other six or seven stories I've thought of in the last few weeks.

I thought about going anywhere, that was my goal, to go anywhere, because I am no longer not desperate enough to land myself in any of the places I haven't been dreaming of my whole life, so I started looking up jobs in Montana and Tennessee and Colorado and not applying to them, just wondering what it would be like to start over somewhere else, how exciting it would be for everything around me to be different, that maybe then I could be different, but I'd have to find a new dentist and doctor and mechanic and family and friends and I got scared, and when it came time to interview for a job in one of the places I'd been dreaming about, I couldn't help feeling relieved when the week passed and she never called me back.

I thought maybe I'll just go back to the beginning and try to be an editor, which is what I've been telling people I wanted to be since my friend who isn't my friend anymore told me she wanted to be an editor and I thought it was the most fantastic idea I'd ever heard, and I thought I'd try and see what I could be, but they took the listings down before I even had the chance to tell them I could be great, that I couldn't imagine doing anything better, that I'll work hard, and I'll try hard to be the best they've ever seen, that that's all I ever wanted, was for someone to give me the chance to be the greatest they've ever had, and it was only then that I read that companies post jobs online only to give the impression that they're offering it to everyone and that most times they already know who's getting that job.

I thought, okay. I thought, time is running out. I thought, I have to do this now. Because in a month it won't matter anymore, my deadline would come, and it's a pretty important deadline to me, but there are even more important deadlines behind it, anniversaries and birthdays, and if I can't do this now, when will I do this, so what I've got to do is try anywhere, any job that I think I could do that isn't here, any job I might meet the qualifications and requirements for, any job at all and just go for it.

And then I thought, But what if it's me. What if it isn't having the right timing and the right keywords, but it's me they don't want to hire. What if it isn't that I've met all the guys this place has to offer me and that I don't really feel like meeting any more of them, but it's me they just don't want to date. What if I've got it all wrong, I'm not intimidating, I'm not too smart, I know exactly what I need to know about the job market, and I fail anyway. What happens when I put my whole heart out there, battered and broken as it is, and the world says,

"No, thanks."