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 |   A journey of self-improvement - or not. |
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Sup? I'm Char. You may know me from timeless classics such as
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[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say "how high?" Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head |
Artist: Hole Song: Doll Parts [Embed For Use By Upgraded+]   Prompt via "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  : Would you rather be surprised or surprise someone else? Write about it! Fucking hell. I'm utterly wiped today. I don't understand Daylight Savings Time at all. When we fall back, I don't feel like I got an extra hour of sleep. When we spring forward, I feel like missing one hour throws off my entire week. And I KNOW I got the extra hour last night because I took allll the pills and passed out earlier than I normally do. I slept like 9 hours straight. Anyway, this prompt is an easy one for me because I loathe surprises. I loathe good surprises. I loathe bad surprises. Hell, I don't even really like unpredictable people.  My anxiety people will back me up. Surprises suck. If it's a super great, thoughtful surprise that took a lot of effort and coordinating, I'm gonna start crying and get embarrassed. If it's a bad surprise, well, bad surprises are just always shit. Don't worry, I have examples. Good (?) surprise At one of my retail jobs long ago, I was getting ready to move out of state so I put in my two weeks notice. It was a menial, standard retail job so I expected nothing when leaving. I worked out my two weeks with little attention to the fact that I was quitting. On my last day, I walk into the break room to clock in and the whole break room is decorated. Balloons, pyramid of cupcakes, bowls of trail mix, bags of chips, a big card signed by all my coworkers, etc. Yes, it was the only goodbye party I've ever received when leaving a job. My direct supervisor, who was in her late 60s at the time, had arranged it. Totally unexpected as I was like 19, this was a minimum wage job, and I'd been working there less than a year. As soon as I saw the stuff, I wanted to just back out of the room. I immediately got that feeling in my throat like I was about to cry, but I held it back long enough for people to explain that my supervisor had set up all this stuff, gotten people to pitch in for gift cards for me and had people bring in food. I looked at the card that was signed by all my coworkers and thanked them and all that. So, after hanging out in the back for a minute, I walked out to our department (which was the music department), where she was working. As soon as she sees me, she pulls out a gift box and says, "I'm really going to miss you." I open the gift box and it’s a cowrie shell bracelet. The town I was leaving was near the beach. She says, “I thought you’d like to have a piece of us with you when you go.” This was at a time where I hadn’t seen my own parents or grandparents in a couple years. I was completely lacking parental support of any kind. Something about the moment made me go completely numb. We worked our final shift together. She made me promise to be careful, promise to call her. She cried a little bit, we hugged, and then we went our separate ways. The next morning I moved a 12-hour car drive away. I wore the bracelet all the time though, and over the next couple months, I had repeated episodes where I would glance at the bracelet and feel this incredible well of sadness. I couldn’t figure out why. I knew it wasn’t because I missed the town I had left. I didn’t think it was because I missed my old boss because, while we’d talked together many times, we weren’t really all that close. But every time I noticed the bracelet on my wrist, I would just feel so empty. And then I realized why. I started feeling guilty. If I was doing something ‘bad’ and saw the bracelet, I would think, God, she would be so disappointed in you. I felt ashamed of myself. I felt like a fraud because I’d never actually showed her who I really was. I’d always kept the conversation shallow and lied as needed to hide where I came from, what I’d done in my life, and pretty much everything that made me who I was. I’d done so because she was such a wholesome and kind person, I didn’t want to bring anything up that would make me look cynical or jaded in any way. On one particularly difficult summer evening, months after I’d moved, I was sitting on the street curb just mentally tearing myself apart about something unrelated. During this moment of inner turmoil, the bracelet caught my eye. The sadness and the guilt overwhelmed me in the moment. I hadn’t even called her since I’d moved to let her know I was okay. I’d realized that her perception of me was someone who didn’t really exist. I was a fraud. So I tore the bracelet from my wrist and the cowrie shells clattered across the street. And that’s the story of how a very thoughtful, kind surprise went awry for me. I would much rather be on the giving end than the receiving end, although I try to be careful about who I surprise. If there’s any doubt at all as to how it will be received, I just don’t do it. I find an alternative way to convey my message without throwing the other person for a loop. |
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