Can the promise of a promotion—the deluded glory of increased responsibility we take on for marginally more cash—somehow fill that gaping black pit that exists where life’s purpose is supposed to be?
Please. Let’s not kid ourselves.
The shine of my promotion last Friday lasted all of about twelve hours. I went straight from work to the Japanese baths to soak and steam the night away. Then I took the appalling luxury of zooming home in a cab rather than boarding the dreaded 38-Geary bus, and when I got home ordered three new bits for my fall wardrobe. Yessiree, I was celebrating. (Unfortunately, I was celebrating six weeks before I will ever see a paycheck from this promotion-to-be, but that is another matter….)
By morning, things would change—as they typically do after fifty minutes with Elayne.
Elayne is my golden-haired, stunningly beautiful, New-Age goddess of a therapist. She’s actually rather intimidating. The first thing she does when I walk into the room is look me up and down, which for a long time just made me feel like she was critiquing my outfit. Supposedly, she’s just been trying to read my body language, but all I can imagine is that she’s actually trying to evaluate how “together” I am on a given day. Is Eliza taking care to wash her hair, and how might that be an expression of her feminine power? Is her skin erupting in a ridiculous, stress-induced breakout, and what dark pattern in her life could have caused it?
It’s all a bit much.
But sometimes Elayne hits on a something useful. Saturday, for instance, when I plopped myself on the white sofa beneath the skylight, she knit her brow. “What’s this?” she asked, imitating my slumped shoulders. “What’s this shrug?”
I squiggled around on the sofa. “I got a promotion. So I guess I’m supposed to stay at this job. They want me to stay, right? ”
And here’s where I started to get my ninety-five dollars’ worth. In a clipped British accent, shaking a wristful of bangle bracelets and whipping her ropelike blonde hair around, Elayne lit into me.
Why would I stay in a job just because it generates approval—a pat on the head here and there? Can a crafty spin on a bleak situation really make me forget the umpteen other career goals I’ve identified?
In short, it can’t. Still, as I tease out the right moment for transition, staying could now be a more pleasant option. And praise the Lord for that.
***
So what about all of those goals I’d set forth? Here’s what I managed to do this week:
1) Mostly finish my application to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, where I want to consider a work-study program next spring.
2) Identify five (very different!) graduate schools where I’d like to apply for an MFA in Writing:
North Carolina State University
3) Buy the GRE prep book and start practicing vocabulary. (Due to the fact that I’ve mostly been writing marketing schlock for the past decade, my vocabulary is actually pretty lousy.)
