"How People Treat You...

Sunday, March 21, 2010
5:54 PM  ...is their karma; how you react is yours." - Wayne Dyer

I am emotionally drained.  This week has been full of the highest highs and the lowest lows.  I don't know how to react to anything anymore!  Someone tells a funny joke, and I find myself wanting to cry.  I get yelled at at work, and I find it hard not to laugh.  What is going on in my life?!!?  I feel like a kid at a carnival who's lost her parents.  She's scared and crying, but she can't help but be distracted by the lights on the merry-go-round.  Does that even make sense?  No, probably not.  Good Lord.

Anyway, to demonstrate the ridiculousness that has been this past week, I am going to tell you two very different stories...

A Low
After a truly horrible day at work on Wednesday, I walked home, blinking back tears.  Hungry, exhausted, I slammed around my kitchen, eventually tossing a frozen vegetarian-steak dinner into the microwave (BAD call, by the way).  Mom called while I was watching the tray rotate in the microwave, and, half-crying, half-yelling, I told her about my awful day.  I even swore - something I never do in front of my mother.  Usually venting puts me in a better mood, but today it just made things worse.  I hung up the phone, threw away my dinner, and fell asleep on my bed with my makeup still on.

The next morning I woke up, my head aching from crying.  I had managed to tear the contacts from my eyes before passing out the night before, so I squinted at the clock on my dresser, trying to make out the time.  It read 5:45.  That couldn't be right...I was seeing it wrong.  Unalarmed, I sat up slightly, and squinted harder.  5:45.  What day is it? I thought, reaching to my desk for my phone.  What's happening?  It couldn't be 5:45.  I had set my alarm for 4:30, so I could be to work by 6.  I was supposed to leave my apartment by 5:45.  I hit a button on my phone, and it lit up immediately.  5:46 AM.  My hands started to shake.  March 18.  Thursday.  My alarm hadn't gone off.

Now please believe me when I tell you, I NEVER miss my alarm.  In high school and in college I was always good about getting up with my alarm.  In fact, I HATE when people use missing their alarm as an excuse for being late.  My philosophy is this: If it's important enough to you, you'll make sure you get up.  This all goes out the window, though, when you forget to set your alarm in the first place.

Shaking and near tears once again, I leapt from my bed and started grabbing dirty clothes off of my bedroom floor.  I was going to be fired.  There was no way I would make it to work on time.  I wasn't going to be a page anymore!  These thoughts just made things worse as I hopped around my room, pulling on pantyhose.  So, to stay focused... I talked to myself.  Like a crazy person.  Fortunately, Wen was away on spring break so she didn't have to hear her crazy roommate running through the apartment, flicking on lights and soothingly saying things to herself like, "It's okay, Tara.  It's going to be okay.  Now, where's your shirt?  You need to wear a shirt.  Okay, good.  We're going to do this.  Okay, now where are your pants?"

Unshowered, hair and teeth unbrushed, I flew out of my apartment by 5:55 AM.  I got a cab in seconds and was at work by 6:05.  The first morning press went out by 6:20, right on time, and nobody was the wiser.  In fact, by the time my boss got in at 8, I had managed to fix my hair, brush my teeth, wash my face and apply foundation and mascara.  If it hadn't been such a terrifying, emotionally scarring experience, I might have been proud of myself.  But for the most part?  Worst. Morning. Ever.

A High
Friday afternoon at work.  The day was already exceedingly better than Thursday, simply because I had woken up on time.  I had even had time to shave my legs the night before (!), so I was wearing a new dress I had bought recently.  I got up from my desk to hand something to my boss and happened to glance down the hallway.  I noticed someone in a page uniform.  Puzzled to see a fellow page, in uniform, on my floor, I took a couple steps closer and realized it was my friend Mike.  He was wandering through the department, looking over the tops of cubicles.  "Mike!  What are you doing??" I loudly whispered. 

"Oh hey, can you come here for a sec?" he asked, before immediately turning and walking away.  Totally confused, I told my boss I'd be right back, and walked toward where Mike had been standing.  By the time I got there, he was already disappearing around another corner.  I felt like I was chasing him!  Running to catch up, I almost bumped into him when I turned the corner to the elevator bank to find him standing there with my two other friends, Kayla and Yosef. 

They had snuck to the 10th floor to surprise me!  Once I realized what was going on I started hugging them and laughing and trying not to cry (shockerrrr).

"We wanted to surprise you and tell you that we miss you and everything's going to be okay," said Kayla, handing me a box from Magnolia Bakery that contained to adorable little cupcakes.

"We knew if we told you we were coming, you would have told us not to come," Yosef explained.  Hence the surprise.  They weren't sure how they were going to lure me away from my desk though, or where my desk was for that matter, so they had sent Mike in to do some reconnaissance work, and luckily I saw him.  I was only able to spend a few minutes with them outside the elevators, for fear of getting caught, but in that brief time we all celebrated Kayla and Mike getting their new assignments that day.  And in that brief time, really for the first time since moving here, I felt like I had real friends.  They knew I'd been having a rough time, and they went through a lot to let me know they were there for me.  I don't think I will ever forget walking into the elevator bank and seeing the three of them standing there, all with huge, mischevious grins on their faces. 

**

Eventually the feeling of panic I experienced when I woke up late on Thursday will fade.  But the goosebumps I get when I think about my friends surprising me keep coming back. 

And thus, the good always manages to outweigh the bad.

Who knew cupcakes could do all that?

Love,
Tara