Time is on my side

Cleaned out a file cabinet the other day...I hadn't organized this thing in at least 6 years, and had given up completely on actually using it for filing. I had been stuffing file-worthy papers in the same stack in the top drawer for about three years and they had finally started to protrude out of the sides and top of the closed drawer, and then I'd stacked papers on top for about a year after that before finally breaking down and slogging through the mess.

I found stuff I've had for 10 years. Directions to the house of a former fuck buddy. Paperwork for my first credit card. Work evaluations from three different companies and notes from my impressions of my job interviews there. I threw everything out except the first interview impressions as I thought they were amusing.

The work evaluations bummed me out. "Too many personal calls." "A lack of urgency." "Started out well but seems distracted as of late." I have a horrible work ethic. I partly blame this on my father as by nature and nurture I was bred and conditioned to become a selfish, narcissistic slob. (I would, you know, take responsibility for my lack of work ethic, but that would take some effort, and now we're all the way back around to point A.) Anyway, with the evaluations I had (and have, who are we kidding?) the unfortunate ability to do a pretty slapstick, haphazard job and then be sensitive about the fact that I get called on it. It's a lovely combination. And reliving all of these evaluations, not to mention the who-the-fuck-am-I-and-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life years they happened in made me really sad.

I was already feeling down about the way my short story turned out for this writing class. I'd decided to write from the point of view of a babysitter who I really liked as a kid who happens to be black. I remembered this incident where my mom gave her a present and the babysitter, who was generally extremely shy, asked for a hug. My mom talked about this hug over and over and so from there I imagined this story of a babysitter who is in love with the kids' mom, but is so conflicted about it! And then gets hit on by the dad! I wrote it, set it aside for a couple of days, and when I picked it up, I was horrified. It sounded incredibly unbelievable and very racist: a young black woman who is obsequious and lusty, who is madly in love with a white character for no apparent reason. So I was in the midst of rewriting the story because my character obviously wasn't really in love with the mom. And I was feeling bad and unsure of myself. I mean, I want to write, but this is one of the reasons I've avoided it for so long...what the hell is going to come out? What am I going to expose to people?

So reading my shortcomings as an administrative assistant over the years bummed me out a lot at first. But then the more crap I had to wade through the less time I felt sorry or sentimental and the more I just gave stuff the heave-ho. Maybe that's a good reason to write. Throw the old brainwaves out so the new ones can come in.