The Heat And Discomfort
The heat in these parts has reached ridiculous levels, but that’s just one of the many consequences of living in this part of California. I find it best to just deal with the heat rather than complain about it. Having said that, the car claimed that it had reached 109 degrees outside and that might have been in the late afternoon. I’ve since come to recognize that really, anything over 105 degrees is just fucking hot. 109. 115. 119. It’s all hot. Quantifying it and labeling temperatures with numbers, at that point, makes no difference. Your best bet is to hope that you have air conditioning that is accessible to you and functioning well. Otherwise, you’re going to be uncomfortable.
Speaking of uncomfortable, my working vacation continues and the cabin fever remains a huge problem. See, there is where I am now conflicted. I have always been the type of person who has to leave the house in order to feel like I accomplished something that day. It’s so damn outside, no one in their right mind would want to even think of going outside, much less actually doing it. For me, this could mean something as petty as filling the car’s gas tank. It might the one and only errand I run that day, but in the end, I did something. Strangely, I feel fulfilled, even if I happen to do very little. Maybe I’m setting the bar especially low, but for an introvert, that’s more than enough.
I spoke briefly with Serena today. She’s still in the middle of the extensive training regimen for work and really, she’s just getting started. She figures that she will be done with all of it in the next two and a half months, so we’re looking at about mid-October. What this means is that if we are to see each other, we’re going to have to really take advantage of the days that we both will have in the office. At the most, we will have two days out of the five-day work week to “hang out”. There will likely be some lunches to be had there but for the most part, we’ll just have to rely heavily on text messaging and random phone calls. If I think about it long enough, it almost feels like we’re in the midst of a long-distance relationship and it sucks.
I had to explicitly ask Serena if she wanted to be my next work wife. Call it an act of paranoia. Maybe there’s a certain insecurity there? Perhaps deep down, I’m afraid that if I don’t make my intentions clear, she could just as well go off and “dedicate” her workday to someone else. I think that she and I have developed quite the bond to each other to where, by asking her this, I want to show her that I am serious about this. In a strange way, I am convinced that she knows how serious I am and how I feel about her.
All of this talk about Serena and the way I feel about her brings me back to a time where I was a schoolboy chasing after a girl I thought was pretty and I wanted to do whatever I could to let her know that. Growing up, it was never unusual to find girls pretty, attractive, or just cute. It was all part of growing up and there was never unusual about it. I just don’t think that I was well-equipped for it back then.
I think the biggest challenge for me as a young boy was developing the strength and courage to talk to that girl and let her know how I felt. I am extremely confident now, as a grown man, and I want to think that I have a masterful use of language to where now, I am of the mindset that I can talk to Serena and let her know exactly what is on my mind. As a boy, I was hardly this confident. Sure, I could put a sentence together then, but in thinking about it now, the one thing that I was missing when I was younger would be the looks that most girls found even remotely attractive. I was always that fat kid, the one who was always cool to talk to, but not quite the guy who anyone wanted to date. I guess that sort of thing always lingers in the back of your mind, even when you get older and even lose some weight, to where you think you’ve overcome those issues. Indeed, I have overcome them maybe to some degree, but the fear always lingers and now, I still second-guess myself, even with the confidence that took me years to build.
Serena knows that I am confident and most of the time, I don’t have to do anything to put it on display. It’s just there and she knows it. She’s seen it. She’s even called me on it and once referred to me as arrogant. I guess there’s a thin line there between arrogance and confidence. I don’t think I’m arrogant, but Serena sometimes sees it that way. Maybe I need to scale that back?
I am older, a little thinner, and much more confident than I was when I was in high school. Yet here I am, feeling somewhat fearful to approach Serena and let her know what I’m thinking. I guess that’s just proof that we are all a product of our history and the environments where we grew up. I just never thought that after losing these 40 or so pounds that I’d still feel like this, but apparently, that little fat boy still lingers. I guess in some strange way, he will always be a part of me, regardless of how many pounds I lose.
This feels like a rambling post. I am usually much more organized and concise than this. I blame the heat.