UNWRITTEN: ED Phoning Home OUCH

ed phoning home ouch

After being rejected from a job that pays $18,000 / year at the women’s prison, a job that pays $21,000 teaching Head Start, getting fired from Red Lobster (because apparently, I am just not Red Lobster “material” I decided to go to the Tennessee Career Center to take advantage of their high speed internet, free printer paper, and ink…

I was hooked up with an excellent counselor earlier this afternoon. He has two master’s degrees-- one in Educational I Career Counseling, and a second in counseling psychology. This is the guidance counselor I have been asking for since..., well, since... I was in a school long enough to have a guidance counselor, but I never got.

Because I simply refuse to take any more of those tests. Not really an issue any more, since they clearly do not fit into my budget anyway! Nope. I will not take ‘em for Vanderbilt, and I will not take ‘em for law school. Not for Harvard, not for Tennessee, and I most definitely will not take ‘em for Dave Cordray (and yes, Dave, you are still in fact, such an asshole!)

Who gives a shit anymore??? If you told a me a fat bearded lady at the circus could decide my fate and tell me what direction I should choose next-- I would take it! and throw in a fat tip for being smart enough to know that any answer-- no matter how grim, is far better than just wandering aimlessly through life looking back on what might have been-- at THIRTY! AT THIRTY! !

I wish I could say that after all this time I developed other ego strengths and finally felt okay with whom I am, you know.... “just being me.” but I am sad to report that my “condition” (diagnosis) was amazingly accurate and predictable. just like all the doctors said! I wonder if they derive joy out of being right— if they crack open a bottle of aged liquor in my father’s office and say, “see, we told you so. we told you their was nothing you could do. and so nothing he did. By doing nothing and I do mean nothing-- the illness take will its course, and I am now, in fact, nothing. Nothing costs nothing (at least to him) and daddy made another fine investment, on the other hand, nothing has drained every hope, fear, security— chance-- every last breath from my body. I might have believed in me. And I know I’m alive because a tear just rolled down the side of my cheek. I am home.

I am the exact same 5 year old who needed to win the spelling bee. In college, I was the one to set the curve, not just make it, break the rules, and, break [them] I did. There is no glory in being second best. Second smartest, second brightest, or second anything.

But I still have not learned, for some reason with all of my failures, I am reminded of in so many ways. Me, myself watch them play out every time I shut my eyes or open them. Yes- blink, sometimes I ask myself, how did I get here? How did this happen? What happened to all of the plans I made for myself~ where did they go? Where did I go? Constantly replayed over and over and over again in my mind, 1 must be FUCKING CRAZY! But at this moment, here, even as I say the words, I am not truly insane. 1 am merely in pain, what a tragedy that those two words rhyme-- they ruin what could have been a very profound misnomer of the human condition and the labels we hold so dear.

And so my search for mediocrity continues, and I wait for it each and every day, hoping it will find me beaten and worn from the stoma. All of the storms, but damn-it it is still there. I still have questions those damn elyssa questions that made all my professors so proud, damn ideas, damn thoughts, damn hope.

My mother still calls me everyday to see if I went down to get food stamps to feed myself, flick her, and her fucking things. Flick diamonds and couture and fuck that life. I was here mom, the whole god-damned time. Just not pretty enough with out any surgery. Not pretty at all with all those damn scars,

I am the exact same 5 year old who needed to ACE the spelling bee, set the curve, not just make it, break the rules, and, break. them I did. There is no glory in being second best. Second smartest, second brightest, or second anything. Being second sucks. it sucks every goddamned second of the day.

Goodnight my dear friends, lets all try to have sweet dreams. Pepe awaits, as does Alanis and a pack of smokes that 1 can already taste. I hope you all still love me. I do actually believe that I deserve love and kindness despite the obvious fact that I am a royal pain in the ass. I refuse to work in Burger King.

What could have been, what should have been-- what might have been if you let me be

m.e.

When in Chinese, the word Crisis is composed of two characters: One represents danger and the other represents opportunity...

JFK

Elyssa D. Durant © 2003-2013