Ajusting IV

 

IV

Viktor calls me a miracle on facebook chat. We've only met once before. He says have you ever saw someone and just knew they where the best person in the world, and then you saw there photographs and realize they are a miracle? I immediately think of 5 minutes in a library, almost ten years ago, but I've been trying to shut that out as of late. His talk is sweet and brings momentary comfort to my loneliness, but the can of worms it threatens to unleash in my heart is a far stronger force. I'm awkward and don't know what to say, so I take another picture and sign off instead. Its been a week. I just started working again, and a new campaign brings old battle wounds boiling to the surface of my skin, raw and itchy as I buried them in California. Every door I knock on I'm trying to prove myself to the memory of a man whose employment I left in shame and disrespect. Every donation is not enough, every member I could have gotten to do more. I know what I've done wrong after every interaction, yet repeat my mistakes with the next person that greets me on their porch. Its frustrating, and the only thing keeping me from tears is the desperation to prove myself to a memory. I will NOT go down like this. Not again. Not like Greenpeace. Greenpeace, another bleeding gash in my heart presses painfully against my conscious like the clipboard in my half frozen hand. It feels like one of those nightmares when your running from a monster, but instead your legs turn to jelly so you fall on your face over and over again until it catches you. My manager assures me I'm doing better than any trainee and I almost tel him he's wrong, because I'm not any trainee. I'm a professional and this is just a new campaign. The day ends. I make staff quota but its not enough still. My quota should have been higher, because I should have done more. Some of the staff are going for drinks. I know there lingo Want to help me forget tonight? But I pretend to be unaware and slip out the office door to my bus as fast as I can. A new campaign is one thing, but befriending a new team is another emotional process that I'm not sure if I'm ready for, not yet. I'm not even sure if I want to befriend anyone anymore. There's safety in my solitude, and a certain amount of control. The bus comes faster than I expect it to. I listen to classical violin, having talked all day I cannot stand to hear another syllable of language. I let the music drown my nagging memories and focus on what I want to do better tomorrow. At home Brooklyn needs to go out and the cats need to be fed. The dishes should be done but I still don't have the energy for it. The refrigerator looms at me. My stomach burns with hunger, making me nauseous but this is nothing new. I turn away from it and brew a cup of coffee instead. I play guitar till 2am then march the animals with me upstairs for bed.

Though I try to fight it at first, I dream of him.