Caterwauling

For the second night in a row, at my exit, there was a horrific crash.

Once again I could hear the impact, hear the tires as the car that was rear-ended spun out, and feel the smoke-and-gasoline smell filling my lungs.

I need to quit coming home at 8:30 at night, is all I’m saying.

God’s spared me twice, and probably a million more times over the course of my driving career. And I cannot thank Him enough for that.

But like I was telling Mom, my hour-and-a-half-ish time in the car each day is the best part of my day. Narrowly averted crashes and massive panic attacks and all. It would just be nice if the drive, the only thing that CAN go smoothly right now, actually would.

Apparently red yield signs are for decoration in my ‘hood. There’s a weird intersection when you’re coming off the island, and it’s a triangle-shaped roundabout. I have the right of way to go left but some ninny in a big-ass truck didn’t realize that he had to stop before going straight. Anyway, I almost got wiped off the road and there were just not enough expletives to make that pain go away.

And then there are all the assholes who pull out from side streets and gas stations who SOMEHOW DO NOT SEE my little red jalopy. One of these days I’m going to flip my shit. I really am.

Half my team is working from home today. If only my little Mac were compatible with these wonderful systems, I’d be among the pants-free set today. Sigh.

So, yesterday’s commute? From sweet, sweet hades, I tell you.

Left the office around 8, per usual. The days are getting longer and I drive from West to East, so I get to see a lot of different-color skies as I travel what feels like about three time zones.

I chose silence in the car once again over music. When I’m stressed to the hilt I choose not to speak. When I’m one step beyond that, I can’t handle any more information coming into my brain.

By 9-ish when I got home last night, I was shaking.

The moment I pulled out of the lot and onto the real road, the asshole cop who pulled me over last year and gave me the wonderful ticket and that same ticket that got me a license-suspension notice because I didn’t complete traffic school by some imaginary deadline nobody gave me decided to follow me for a mile. That was fun. Asshole.

But it gets better.

And by better, I don’t mean that word.

The first leg of the journey is on a truck route. So, having 18-wheelers behind, in front of and beside me was a slight annoyance. The fact that they wouldn’t let me pass or break free for 13 miles was no picnic either.

Finally I get on the freeway, where a state trooper decides to tail me for 11 miles. There were two different cars at different points on the side of the road, their owners clearly in distress. Did this nitwit pull over? Hell naw.

I finally lose the state trooper somewhere before my own exit. I jump into the second-to-right-hand lane so I can get the exit and …

*smash* Almost.

I counted seven cars at a dead-stop. The last of which I missed by three inches and only by the grace of God, I assure you. I could hear breaks squealing beside me in the medial as someone else veered off the road to try to miss them too.

You know, nobody down here knows how to drive. Nobody pays attention. You cannot be tired or lost in thought or in a conversation with a passenger down here. Any love you have for driving, this state will kill for you. I promise.

So, life spared and God repeatedly thanked, I finally get to the side streets. I was coming down the bridge to my street, in the left lane, when some idiot on a skateboard fell off the sidewalk. He fell into the thankfully empty right lane but his skateboard? Came sailing at me. Somehow it went under the car and came out the other side.

Then I pulled into my own lot and got out. Whereupon some asswipe comes it at 100 mph and almost knocks me off my feet.

It’s 15 minutes till I normally leave the house and I haven’t even scrubbed my butt. Not that I’m in a huge hurry to start the workday anyway, but I just do not feel like getting in that car and doing another round-trip like the one I had yesterday.

I swear I only stay subscribed to dating sites because they either entertain me or help my career.

Case in point, I got a great message last night from someone. Well-written (for a change), spelled correctly and even mentioned meeting up on one of my favorite streets in South Florida.

I’ll forgive him that he talked mostly about himself and didn’t ask any questions. 🙂 After all, he’s prospecting. He knows I’m not ready to buy yet — he’s just trying to get me to agree to sample the product.

But he didn’t close the deal.

Basically all I got was a “hey lady, look at me” — a nice headline and a soft sales pitch … WITH NO CALL TO ACTION.

Not “I’d love to hear back from you.” Not “hey, there’s a new bar on X Avenue if you’d like to meet up next weekend.” Not even, “Care to continue the conversation over coffee?” Or, hell, “Hi, I’ve told you enough about me. Here’s a question for you to make you write back.” Not in so many words, of course.

Anyway, yeah. How many relationships are never started, friendships are never continued and sales are never closed simply because nobody ASKED for someone to take an action?

That’s the thing. I’m not planning to reply. Seems nice enough. Seems like he’s been all over the world and we’d have a lot to talk about. But I’m not motivated enough to come up with things to talk and inquire about, simply because I didn’t see a call to action and therefore I don’t feel obligated to act.

Damn, I am going to write some good (actionable) copy today …

Words really are cheap. Nobody hears them. And if they do they tend to miss the bubbling vat of emotion (when there’s any left) behind them.

The only thing anybody seems to hear is silence. Actually, no they don’t. It gets smothered by the noise others are making. Your gurgles from beneath the plastic bag you’ve tied over your head become white noise.

But smacking someone like a snooze alarm would end up in a restraining order and an assault charge. So, you know. Silence. It’s all I’ve got right now.

Mom’s health problems continue to mount. And for as much as I’ve complained over the past six-and-a-half years since my grandfather died and she moved onto my dime, I really can’t imagine this life without her if something really bad does happen. She’s all I’ve got.

I was thinking about that this weekend. There are few if any people I do call when I need to talk or want to go out. Nobody really enjoys introspective and helpless Goddess; everyone only likes her when she’s in command and is the one either livening up the party or sweeping up everyone else’s broken glass. (Sometimes literally.)

When Goddess is ready to drive into oncoming traffic, nobody cares about THAT girl. And you know what? She’s pretty sick of everyone else coming to her that way too. When they don’t have anything left to give, either, and she certainly won’t be the recipient when they do.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I need to reach out more than I do. (Which isn’t much, admittedly.) I dunno. I’ve just gotten too many, “I’m busy” and “Thanks anyway” or silence when it was all I could do to keep the edge out of my voice when I was crying for help on the inside and trying to ask nicely on the outside.

I’ve watched the same thing happen to my family over their lifetimes. We rescue people. We fix their shit. That’s hardwired into our DNA.

I jump into rescue mode and then when I collapse afterward for five minutes, anything to claim just a moment of sanity so I can go on to the next crisis, everyone’s concerned that I missed a deadline on something else. Like I was sitting around filing my nails or something. That I’m keeping someone else from leaving at 5 when that will never, ever be an achievable exit time for me.

Sometimes I think people think I’d be offended if they offered help. But I don’t know how to convey that I WOULD LOVE THEM FOREVER if they not only offered, but just jumped in and DID something instead of remarking about the burning embers from the safety of being inside a Hazmat suit.

I read something the other day from my favorite psychic, who said you know you’re on the right path when you’re filled with excitement. Even if your path doesn’t work out until years or decades from now, you have something to look forward to you and you can feel its gravitational pull.

You know what pulls me? Paychecks. I look forward to every other Thursday when the girl from H.R. hands me my paystub. That makes my little heart go pitter-patter.

I remember working in non-profit grantwriting in Pittsburgh and feeling drawn to using my journalism degree. I ended up in D.C. And years later, I felt drawn to leave the “putting out fires daily” job and move into more creative, project-based endeavors. In warmer weather.

So here I am, after a series of strange circumstances, doing the putting out multiple fires daily AND project-based endeavors. I don’t hate it. It’s clearly a season for sowing as opposed to reaping, and I try to keep that in mind when I still have Friday’s headache on a Sunday morning.

I used to have an attitude of “I can do anything.” Then it morphed into “I can do everything.” And now that I literally CAN do anything and everything, well, what is it I WANT to be doing? Because I can’t do it all anymore. I just want to do something extraordinarily well … and to want nothing more than to catapult out of bed fueled by a massive rush of adrenaline because I just cannot wait to do whatever it is.

Instead of, you know, smacking the snooze alarm every nine minutes for an hour and a half, and trying not to put a face on it in my mind.

I’ve read two articles this week on what to do when one of your star team members resigns.

I wanted to forward it to a few of my former employers. Of course, the best workplace did right by me and tried every day through my 30-day notice period to keep me.

Looking around at the path my career has since taken, I almost wish they’d been successful.

It’s a timely topic, and one I’d write about on my profeshunal blog if I could just figure out the fucking FTP password. (I’ve tried everything. I give up.)

But since I can’t say something nice, I’ll say it here!

We had some people who could have been stars. And just “lost” them both.

I say “lost” lightly because there was a time period, I believe, where we could have engaged and saved them. There was also a time right before it when I thought they were worth saving and training and helping to shine.

We lost them somewhere. I think we should own part of that responsibility, yes, but I also see where they quit trying. While I understand why, I guess I look at myself and I wish they would have followed my own example. No matter how things got/get, I don’t stop doing my best.

Sure, some days I may want to punch everyone within a six-foot radius. But I also know that I’d rather have a day full of achievement rather than a day full of skirting responsibility. And when some folks felt they didn’t have to do what was asked of them or return my e-mails or basically treat me with anything but respect and reverence, well, good luck.

I always found myself in trouble for not delegating, or just focusing on getting my own massive load done and done correctly, when I hit my limit. Look, I got my ass handed to me by the Boob Twins for spending too much time trying to develop young talent that the bosses clearly just wanted to use to get their insatiable “firing high.” In trying to keep everyone else on the payroll, I put myself right into their firing range.

Surely, I’d thought, they couldn’t lose someone as valuable as me. Riiiiiiiight. Surely a vampire has to get tired of drinking blood, yes? Puh-leeze.

Frankly I’m happy for the changing dynamic. Of course, I worry that the next one will create more problems than he or she solves. But I hope this is an opportunity to find the right fit and the right person to keep spirits up and momentum intact.

Of course, when even the people you’re happy to see go, well, go, I think back to the article about when star players leave. What happens when the star players aren’t the ones leaving and it’s everyone ELSE who’s moving up in the world? How do you handle morale then … especially your own?