But it's still corporate America. It's still all that shit. It's still emails and calls with people who think that sounding less human makes you sound more professional; it's still the bleak, nagging, constant awareness that the men (always men) a few professional tiers above me are barely aware I exist beyond whatever potential I have to increase or decrease a bottom line.
And so, no matter how much fun I have with my colleagues, no matter what little successes I enjoy, on the daily, I'll find myself poring over a string of text in a log file or entering my 90th minute on a conference call and suddenly...
I like to think there are people out there enjoying professional lives in which they, also on the daily, stop and think "Yes. This. This is exactly what I'm meant to be doing." But I also know that even if you have the most fabulous career... even if you're an alpaca farmer or a dolphin trainer or an astronaut... you still have moments like:
And I think that's just life. Or maybe it's the middle of life? There was a time when I got a huge gas out of business cards and meetings and feeling like a grown-up. That was fun. But then, at some point, I can't help feeling like a banal cog in a boring wheel and I'm sure I'd be a huge disappointment to the kid you used to be.
Sigh. That's probably not true. I have a nice life. I have a great family and a good salary; I'm healthy and fairly strong and, this really cannot be overstated, often go DAYS without having to put a bra on. Still, I'm curious, how do you handle the existential dread? The feeing you missed that left turn at Albuquerque? Right now I'm watching Stop Making Sense with my daughter and a glass of pretty decent red wine. It's working. It's mostly working.
God David Byrne was such a fabulous weirdo.
