In the interim of the last few dizzing years of heartache, poverty and tropical winds I have let loose of all this pent up logic and let out the free, strong, fearless human that was always hiding inside. I silently stole some russian courage from a man who was never destined to be a lover, just a friend. The courage to throw all care of outcome at passing cars and tread blindly in whatever direction came to me first. The courage to tell strangers to go fuck them selves if my mediocrity doesn't please them.
This project I have really only taken on to feed some lost self identity that seems to have a claw and teeth grip on my ego. The misguided non-truth that entering questions into a report will keep people from dying of AIDS still manages to bring on a sense of awe to those whom I inform of my hard won profession. This ego dousing career that has merged solidly with my sense of self and may eventually only be hacked away against its will, has rekindled something else too. It has brought back fear and loathing and a stentch of daily anxious dread. The feeling that my ineptitute at leaping high enough to please anyone who holds power over me will render me too weak and anxious to even try.
I realized as I waded thru these distantly firmiliar emotions that the reason I spent 17 years with a man whom when asked what he would do with his life if he had a magic wand was left without any imagination to pick a single option was for this. He held this part of me. He washed my back in the shower, stroked away my worry and accepted my troubles in his lap of solitude. He made it possible for me to be this person. This person who hides her wildness inside neatly buttoned shirts, this person who keeps tidy rows of data in order against the will of her messy unsorted brain and ensures she humbly bows to any and all authority, asking nothing more than "am I good enough?". This person I haven't seen for awhile. This person I was never meant to be. I didn't miss her. I don't want her back, my ego will have to do without.
I am told I have a boyfriend, I believe he is watching cricket with his friends in another country. He may message me tomorrow and tell me who won. He may not. He will not hear of my worries, he will not recieve my fears. He will not wash my back in the shower.
In this moment with this anxious dread eating at my stomach I want to be held and wrapped tightly. But the reality is I i no longer have someone to perform this task. If I abandon this ship I have just stepped on, poke holes in it hull and let it sink, I may no longer need someone for this job. I have become someone in the interim who no longer fits data into tidy rows but knocks down brick walls with someone elses arms. Who gambles high stakes with no fear of loosing my hand. I have simply found a realm in which I am not afraid. I am not afraid of papuan wood mafia, balinese fraudsters or javanese sand pedlers. If data and authority figures are what go bump in the night then maybe I don't need a boyfriend to comfort me, maybe I need to finally shed the last of my old skin and embrace fully the becoming that is already nearly done. The me that looks little like the girl that tried too hard to care, too hard to please and needed a man to stand waiting to play the sole role of her fulltime wet nurse to ease her thru the anxiety of modern life. I am no longer her. I live in the wild west and fight pirates. I am the boss, all 30 men who cut thru steel and wood and brick on my behalf will tell you this truth.
I am told I have a boyfriend, he may be watching cricket. He is not here to comfort me and ease away my sleepless fears of authority and untidy data. I no longer care.
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