Hanging On, Wringing Out

One more day of writing about this software package, then I leave for Boston.

I'm trying my very best, but my insides are feeling raw. I wish I knew of a better way to conduct myself as I do my work. My heart wants to do well for this company. It's just that I can't, not these days anyway. They don't deserve this.

I feel like a towel that's been wrung and wrung into a tight twist, sitting on the sink, in view of a scorching sun.

Moisture, like my creativity, is gone. The towel is bone dry. And if someone were to wring and wring, the result would be no different.

Words! Where are the words? It's just that the sun took them away somehow, and there is nothing in near view to immerse me again.

So I ask the Universe this: Throw me into another bucket of water, somewhere. It is with utter frightfulness that I ask this, but my option to keep things just so makes me crumple anyway.


Posted by ruth at June 19, 2002 08:56 PM

Choosing Sadness

"To forget a friend is sad."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I remember feeling as if I died in Janice's world. The pain was unspeakable, and I cried and cried. I used to wake up in tears then turn to bed in tears.

But today Reid walked by and asked me if Janice still does admissions for the same senior healthcare facility.

"I haven't spoken with her on friendly terms in a long time," I told him. And the as-a-matter-of-fact tone carried in my throat surprised me. 

That very moment, I felt as if she was someone I knew from another lifetime. It was a complete separation, and I accepted our rift the same way I have accepted that some of my first grade friends I may never see again. No animosity, no sadness, just acceptance.

Suddenly, the coldness I thought could never befall her toward me has somehow befallen me toward her. If I could listen to how I felt at the moment, I would say my insides sounded like slow footsteps in an empty room.

During our college campus days, one distinct phrase Janice often said was, "Apathy is worse than hate."

And now I breathe deep then exhale long as I consider the height from which I have fallen. I was cold this morning as I spoke with Reid.

But as I type this, just right now, I am once again sad. I do not like sad, but for the moment, I choose it over apathy. I do not want to be someone I cannot recognize, at least not that someone inside my chest whom I felt and listened to this morning.

Janice, if you're out there, hang in there. I am deathly afraid to be your friend again but perhaps tonight I should say a prayer for you.

Posted by ruth at June 17, 2002 08:10 PM

Jump!

I've always been transparent. Heart on my sleeve. My disbelief below my bottom lid.

People see me, so I should not find myself bewildered that the company vice president sees that I am stifled.

"Is it obvious?"

She nods, staring deep without even a blink.

She's always liked me and says I can work here the rest of my life. It's just that I know she sees the whole of me, and that there is a Ruth inside waiting to come through.

Does anyone know what it's like to just jump? To leave something perfectly good and perfectly comfortable for something unknown? Who would gamble this way?

Ryan helped me set this journal up and probably got the tagline from a poem that recently got published on proseax.com. Little did he realize the internal struggle that I'm going through.

How many people get to be who they really are?

This summer, I take a big risk, and I'll be in Boston for two whole months. I can't imagine what'll happen there. There are so many questions, and I'm not going to venture to picture what could become of my life and my direction.

Too many people have told me that I need to jump.

But I'm too scared to jump.

Posted by ruth at 07:41 PM

Like a Virgin

Madonna.

Say the word and a generation of us will understand the power of just one human life.

Today while working out a 24-Hour Fitness Kapiolani, I watched VH-1's "Video Collection: Madonna."

I don't feel like rehashing her many great accomplishments as VH-1 does it well enough.

But I ponder on the difference between people who think versus those who do. Some people just do. And, I think, how can they do that?

Perhaps some people know their calling and just fly.

I, on the other hand, seem to be an ambivalent sort.

I've always thought it would be the most fascinating thing to be a biographer, since people from all walks of life intrigue me.

But then I wonder if I have a story of my own to make first.