t's been a month since I've written the last chapter, and this chapter is only one-third of what I actually wanted to write, but SOMEbody, Far and Away, kept bugging me of, 'oh, where is the next chapter, and it'd better be good!' (she actually didn't say that) that I dropped my two other writing projects, and my iPhone games, and my ... *ahem* 'internet' ... um ... 'research' ...
(Yes, thank you: I'm a loser who's scared of her own shadow and has no life, thank you for o-so-politely pointing that out to me)
(ooh, red heads!)
(I have no idea where that one came from. No idea at all!)
(Little Annie, Victoria's au pair, is a blond, not a red head, by the way ... which will make sense to you after I finish "Auld Lang Syne" and start "Annie, au pair") ...
So I was hiding in the corner sulking, but I got bugged into writing this next chapter, because somebody very politely reminded me that it's not about me and how scared I am to write anything ('Oh, wah, boo-hoo! Writing is so hard!'), and how I'd rather just fill my mind with work and noise (or noise and noise, as the case may be), but it's about ...
Hm. Altruism-alert, but what the hell. It's not about me, but it's about my responsibility to you to write what I have to write. Mel Brooks was told "If you're going to step up to the bell, ring it." I had the guts to think about Alicia and Caroline, so I may as well ring that bell and let the whole town hear it, and judge me, the bell-ringer, for what I've done, good or bad, instead of not judge me, not even know me, nor care, for what I've not done.
I started this. I better G.D. not disappoint you by not finishing it, again, like I always do.
(Yes, I have a very high opinion of myself (that's sarcasm, or self-loathing. Whatever. Again))
I love you. I love my characters as they struggle through their lives, trying to make sense of their world, trying to keep their dignity intact as they try to make this work, whatever this is. I love you, my readers, for reading something into what I write, and finding something in there that means something to you, even if I don't know what it is, because I surely don't, 'cause I'm just struggling, trying to make this work and pretend I have a shred of dignity when my boss pulls me aside and tells me he has to help me when he sees how utterly I've failed leading a division that nobody else would touch, and ... I didn't do a bad job, but what's to be proud of that? That I didn't do a bad job, and now I'm just a little office worker again, trying not to be ashamed that I tried to manage something, a very, very small team, and I couldn't, and now I report to a new hire, a woman much older than me, much more experienced than me, much more competent than me, and she wants to make sure I'm happy doing my job now that she's taken over.
And. I. so. am. I'm so relieved that she's taken over management of the division, so I can do what I'm really good at, and she can take care of all the politics and go to all the meetings with management and take all the heat (well, most of the heat) and complain to me about how hard it is and how demanding upper management is, and don't they understand all the stuff we're doing? And I'm like, amen, sister, amen, and thank you for taking this on.
And that's me, a little girl who volunteered to jump into the little-big pond of leading a small team of one other person at work and utterly failing and now, here I am, happy to be just little, tiny me again, and not in charge of other people and 'the direction of the project' and all that entails.
And so, so sad that I was looked to be more than I could be, but I couldn't. I failed. Smart, little `phfina tried, and failed.
And now I have to ... press forward, and just ... meet every day, being little me, and be okay with that, or figure out how to ...
Oh, God.
How to, once again, face my coworkers and my relatives, and live with the terrible burden that I have so much potential.
And maybe that's all I'll ever have. Maybe that's my place, to be a little nobody, a little office girl who smiles up at you from her desk, and that's all you'll ever know of her, just the girl who went to work and smiled at you as you passed by, and that's it.
Maybe if I look away at the right time, you won't notice me, and I'll just disappear, and nobody will know I'm gone.
The Invisible Girl.
The Point
But the point is this, not that I'm a nobody. That's not news.
No, the point is this.
One reader didn't care about silly, little sorrowful, suffering moi (that is French). She wanted the next chapter, I was the writer of it, and she worried me down until she exacted my promise to write it.
Sometimes ... you have to be hard to get what you want. Sometimes ... the measure of a person's worth is how much somebody else demands not what you think what you can give, but what she knows that you can, and excuses be damned. So this (partial) chapter is for you, Far-away girl.
And my next chapter is being written, even now as we speak!
Or, more precisely: even now as we don't speak, as I'm the shy, quiet type; the one to smile tightly and then run away if you notice me too much.
But, still, for a' that, I'm also the one who's smile goes from her face and seeps into her bones, because she knows you demanded the next chapter from her and didn't allow her sad, little whining excuses to allow her to shirk her responsibilities as a writer.
I am a writer. Saga told me: 'Read what you just wrote me: you are a writer, min allra käraste Älskling. Never forget that.' (Saga was always such a bossy, little sweetie, with her big batting eyes, her teasing smile, and her 'erhm, who? me?' and her 'Thuesdays.' The little Valkyrie. God, I miss her so much it physically hurts.)
I will fade away into dust. My job and my disappointments will come and go. My words may touch you today, but someday, they, too, will be no more.
But This is Eternal.
I am a writer, and a writer writes.
Thank you for reading what I've written so far. I hope you like what I've yet to write, but will.
And you know why? Because somebody gave a fuck, and didn't care that I'm a nobody. No, she was somebody who had a voice and a demand, and I better step up to that bell and ring it, because I did not want to mess with this, because she's somebody.
You're somebody. You have a voice, and if you demand hard enough, you may actually find that your demand is being heard by somebody, somebody with just enough life left in her to honor that request, and to honor you, ... for being somebody.
ps: Okay. Holy fuck. I just saw Saga leave a Starbucks near where I live. She walked right past me, the shawty, in her little black mini, her candy-cane knee-high socks, her wavy, brunette hair and the self-possessed air of an Old-Worlder navigating calmly through the confused busy-ness of this New World. Siiiiigggggghhhh.
I guess I'll drown my nostalgic sorrows in a macchiato and a slice of pumpkin bread. I have a little extra on my sbux card.
