So I’ve Been Told

a blue and white street sign sitting on the side of a road

I talk too much…or so I’ve been told.

I remember being that chica in high school who was always on the phone gossiping with my besties. Going from one call to the next because I’m kinda pre-historic and we didn’t have Facetime back then.

One of my friends had a beeper and I would beep her to call me so that I wasn’t accused of always calling someone else. Rules were weird and inconsistent back then. I couldn’t make so many calls out but someone called for me it was OK.

In hindsight, that was some retro version of manufactured fame which is a story for another time.

The one today is me waiting for a restore site file to finish downloading while the edible brownies kick in because it’s been that kind of a day, week, and month.

Nothing reminds you how far you’ve come like taking a hundred steps back, professionally and personally.

I know I know. It’s supposed to be called the “cha-cha-cha” dance which is a condescending way of soften the blow that comes with the feeling of failure.

I’m at the point where I am ready to forget the decades of healing because clarity is overrated and I’m tired of paying the price for my integrity.

I’ve been online so long that my IRL interactions feel awkward as fuck…I’m not going to lie.

I’m not stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I’m stuck in the Bronx.

I’m stuck in NY.

I’m stuck in a job.

I’m stuck in my life.

When you change one thing and don’t address the root cause, a decaying tooth doesn’t stop decaying. What ends up happening is that you end up getting swept up in a never-ending cycle of whitening the teeth so that you can give the illusion of perfection.

Over time, the sensitivity of the bleaching becomes too much to bear.

I’m left wondering…how long am I going to be loyal to a pain that amplifies an inauthentic facade?

I want to be in Miami. I want to start a life in Miami. I want to return to the only place I’ve felt at peace. Yet I feel like I’m a tree, growing in the sticks of NYC, waiting to get knocked down so I can be repurposed as a table…a table where everyone gets fed, but me.

I think the edibles are finally kicking in.