I looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn't used to wearing jeans to work. It didn't make sense to me. I felt like I was wearing pajamas. The heaviness in my chest was still there. The machines whirred differently. It was almost like they were concerned.
Should I just go back and sit there quietly? Should I just go do the job and keep my mouth shut? Would that lift the heaviness from my chest? There was too much going on to just walk away. The kid was right. I couldn't just quit
I looked at the mirror again. My jeans didn't quite fit the way I thought they should. The shirt was a little more snug than it was when I bought it a few years ago. I saw a man who was getting older. Was it too late? Did I have the strength to start from the bottom again? Was it time to suck it up and learn how to 'listen'? The heaviness started to feel like pain.
They were not here to heal my pain. They did not care that I was in a world of hurt. Why should they? This was not their world. Their world was one of blissful ignorance. As long as I continued to show up and function they were not at fault. I was.
The beautiful part was that I could still work. I would love to have enjoyed my work but I was just happy that I could still do it. I loved the concept of the work. I loved that I had the ability to work. I was disappointed that I didn't enjoy the work or the work environment. I would like to have believed things would get better.
Whatever I wanted to believe didn't matter. I simply needed to contend with what was. This seemed to some like a bleak view of the world. It wasn't. It was just an observation of my immediate surroundings. It was not a happy place or a sad place. It wasn't boring or exciting. It simply was. Right then I made a choice about how I would absorb what came to me and how I would react to it.
I opted to just take it in and let it wash over me. I wasn't going to fight back right away. I would watch for the weakness in the armor. I wouldn't strike. I wouldn't lash out. I would wait for the weakness to spread. I would wait until the armor was as brittle as glass. I would watch it shatter on it's own and I then would tread lightly on it's broken promises knowing that they could cut no deeper than it's blissful ignorance.
I looked at myself in the mirror again. It still didn't make complete sense to me but at least I had a plan. I took a deep breath and a bit of the heaviness lifted.
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