Mastermind

It was around 3am again. Funny, it was about the same time of night last time when the transport system was down, and I found myself taking the familiar walk over the glass-covered bridge to the lab with bags of blood samples in hand. On the bridge I get the best view I could ask for in the hospital: a straight shot down Fort Washington Avenue, for at least 10 blocks south, and I can imagine the rest of Manhattan asleep further down. Below me runs the street itself with a few gypsy cabs still parked, no longer as eagerly searching for customers.

I stared at my reflection in the glass as I walked across the bridge and noticed again my tired, stooped posture and immediately pulled back my shoulders as I always do. Then suddenly, without thinking anything in particular, I felt a familiar swelling of tension in my chest, then my throat, then finally my eyes pushing out the tears that had been resting comfortably for some time now in the bed of my sinuses. Now what is it this time? Self-pity that I had no rest tonight? Anger that I can't be understood? Sympathy for my poor patients? Disappointment that I remained selfish in such dire times? Inspiration from my mentors to become better? I had no idea...I probably could have fixated on any of the above and picked any one out from the slide-show of faces and images that ran through my head like in that corny yet annoyingly tear-jerking life insurance commercial. So for one of the first times I could decisively remember, I completely dismissed my emotions and said 'get over yourself!' I wiped my tears, dropped off my blood samples, and went back to ordering Tylenol and Ambien.

When I was younger, I believed my emotions told the future...ie. that massive crush I had on Bobby in third grade in my enchanted mind could only have meant that we were destined to be married and live happily ever after. Needless to say I learned quickly that maybe only the REALLY strong feelings ought to be used to make decisions, a rule which worked well, until recently when I saw that even that strategy could turn out badly, or even worse, the feelings themselves could simply change - too late for decisions to be undone, too soon for them to be forgiven.

So here I am at a buffet of emotions and intuitions, dazzled and perplexed by which ones I will ingest and make part of my history, fearing both that I will be poisoned by the next one I choose, and that I will bypass the elixir that leads to true happiness - a happiness that of course is itself somewhere on the buffet table amongst the forest of distractions. I have become 'that girl' who 'doesn't know what she wants' - so cliche and nauseating. Bleh.

In retrospect I've attempted to advise plenty of girls (and boys) as the one described, and I've always said, 'just try something damn it!' like it was so easy to fuck with one's life like that. But I suppose I could be much further in life at this point if I weren't so scared of fucking up, or beat myself up so much for it - as though I, unlike other poor unsuspecting folks, was somehow wise enough to know the difference between truth and a really good-looking lie.

So maybe it's time that I just try something, time to let myself be played again by the great illusions in this world, not as though I ever had a chance of escaping that in the first place. I guess what I mean is to feel like that's OK, to be satisfied in living a human life in which I will stumble and fall and make a total fool of myself every so often - not just in small ways, but in big ways, and even in way huge ways as well. (Perhaps at this point those of you reading are thinking, 'shit. she's going to shave her head.' Rest assured, I have no plans for that one.) It's just life, and my only life - why waste it on perfection?