Feeling better today

It's at night when I get morose. It's when I let myself think about what I don't have, and when I let myself get tired, hungry, stressed or cold. It's when there's too much noise, or I've had a hard day.

After a good night's sleep, I'm up and at work, feeling productive. It may surprise you to know that I've come a long way in my career. I was the golden girl when I was young, rose to the top of my peers at job after job. I never applied for a job, they were offered to me in a steady succession of upward mobility. I'm making ten times what I made in my first job out of college, four times as much as I was in the early 1990s, twice as much as I made at my last job. I've never actually asked for a raise.

And I think my work is adequate at best. I wonder how well I'd do if I actually tried. I know I'm smart, I come off as extremely competent and my reasoning and writing skills have taken me far. People pay me just to think (which is a good thing, because I can do that). It's when I have to actually do things that I fall into procrastination, have to do the old trick of forcing myself to work for two or three minutes diligently before moving on to another subject (more fun) for a few minutes, then back to forcing myself to work. I think 10 minutes is about my limit for actually working on one specific thing, though I can go for hours if I'm really engaged.

I think my skill set and way of working is commonly called "multi-tasking." Boy am I glad I work in this generation instead of one that requires attention to one task long term. I could never be a surgeon, I guess, or a heavy machine operator. I could probably enjoy being a 411 operator, though, getting to talk to different people all the time. (Though I'd grow bored after a week or two and would want to find ways to change the entire process just because it looked like a challenge.)

I'm a walking dichotomy, a split personality (but not in the psychological sense). It's like I play one character at work, then leave the office and leave that persona behind and become "Incompetent Woman." "Sad Woman." "Lost Woman." "Unloved."

The truth is that all those women live behind the mask of Competent Woman, too, and they peek out all the time. I fight constantly to deal with criticism of my work, and grow defensive on the inside though my goal is to Never Let Them See Me Sweat. Never.

I'm afraid if I start sweating I will start leaking from other body parts, like my eyes and my nose. And once I start crying, I will cry a puddle in this office, and salty water will seep under my door and stain the carpet, run down the hall seeking exit, flood the entry way and lead people to nod their heads and say "I knew she wasn't for real."