Occurring to me

It occurred to me earlier today that in order for someone to look professional or successful, one must wear uncomfortable shoes. Shoes with skinny toes and high, unstable heels. When i’m at work, i take my

shoes off. i see myself sprinting to different parts of the building in bare or sock feet, and i see all those professional shoes. This makes the difference between myself and others very clear. It’s not that i want

to be comfortable or that i am a free spirit or anything of that sort. i am just not successful or professional.

It also occurred to me that school, college, my studies have always been a good shield against actually facing “the real world.” i could excuse away my stupid jobs with the fact that i am studying for something

better. Something intellectual and noble. And after i graduated, nothing happened.My Diploma came in the mail, and nothing happened. i moved to New York City, and nothing happened. i got a whole lot older, and nothing happened. It occurred to me that I’d been in the real world all along, and that despite what i want to think, i created the glass ceiling for myself.

Under the glass ceiling there were storms and sunny days. Clouds made of powders and rains that fell in sheets of vodka and huge, Arizonan raindrops of gin. My friends took cover under the same glass ceiling,

and all the while we thought we were safe. Where rivers of letters and words flowed by and enriched us. Where trees with fruit of pills dropped their seeds into our hands. Where music blew in the wind everyday. We thought

we were protected, but we never realized that under the glass ceiling we were rotting away. We were being pickled and kept while people around us were growing,. Changing. But i just couldn’t stop wading in the river of words and looking foreword to the Vodka downpours. It is only now occurring to me that there is something hovering off the glass ceiling. It’s the real life i

tried to so hard to avoid.

But, instead, i have decided to go back to school. To learn and grow, even if i am still being pickled in my glass ceiling. Because, for me,

there is more than just being part of “real life.” There is being part of the world i created for myself. A threshold where the two different things mix. i am not going to be naïve enough to think they will blend well

because i know better than that. Being a freethinking, learning, literary person and being a bill paying, buckle-down, grocery buying adult without struggle

is like a quest for a relic that does not exist. It is like looking for Noah’s Ark or The Trojan horse. It occurred to me, though, that i can do both things once in a while. i can pay a bill and follow Chuck. i can write and make a living. i can be.

Then it occurred to me that i need to buy new shoes.