Try This For Size.

Written on 06/07/2011

This is the hardest part of growing up. Knowing that you’re not perfect, that something about you doesn’t fit the criteria. And everyone is competing, always. For jobs, for parking spots, for rental properties. Always competing and you cant always win. Some people are winners and some people are losers. I am in the process of figuring out if I am a winner or a loser and if that can ever change.

While I write this, I sit on a train. White shirt, black slacks and no smile. I look corporate. I type fast and don’t worry about the spelling mistakes. It makes me look good to type this way. I look corporate. I look like I matter.

What they don’t know is that I am actually on my way to a job interview. I still have people to impress. I am glad they can’t see what I write. I allow them to think that I matter, that I fit in the world.  I don’t want them to know how hard it is for me to pay the rent and the bills, that right now I have an electricity bill that I cant pay, that I go home alone and eat to make it go away.

On this train, I feel big, like an adult, like I’m respected. When I get to Sydney terminal I know I will shrink. The world will feel too big and I will act too small. I could always try the old “fake it 'till you make it” strategy and hope that I don’t lose my nerve.