"Secret" by The Pierces

There's nothing more thrilling than haphazardly stumbling into new music. Here's today's glorious gem of a find: 

"The Lightning is a yellow Fork"

After an unexpected overnight stay at work, a coworker asks me the next morning whether or not my family needs have been attended to and how they have managed without me. Initially, I dismiss the question as purely innocent, expecting anyone who gives a shit about their family to have already made the effort. But then I realize who I'm speaking to, and her words begin to sit with me differently. I manage to avoid spitting out a "what's that supposed to be mean" retort and make my way successfully out the door.

But her words stick with me throughout the day though my mind is muddled and I'm soon entangled in the extravagance of a long-awaited sleep. My sleep, however, is soon cut short by other needs at hand. The apocalypse can wait - there are battles to be fought and peace terms to be negotiated with the enemy.

After the equivalent of six days work though, a moment's rest finally returns, and my thoughts turn once again to this question plaguing my mind. Not: did I truly address the needs of my family? No. But instead: why is it that I feel as if that question had been an accusation instead?

Overreaction, right? I'm taking things out of context? This woman really meant nothing more than to express her condolences for a long night at work spent away from the comforts of my family and my home? Ok, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that its not without the realm of possibility. But, in exchange for this compromise, I would ask you to indulge my second inclination for a moment. Follow me down the yellow brick road awhile, and let's see where this road leads. Which is to say that again I feel as if this question posed by my coworker was more an accusation or a judgment than it was any effort at compassionate consolation. 

I am a working woman. I spend time away from my family. I have ambition. I have drive. I have other interests in mind than centering my life around the raising of my children. This is not meant out of any disrespect for women who do pursue that way of life. But, I would simply ask of these women that they consider the ways in which they have continued to propragate a myth that women are less than able, that women's duties continue to be to their hearth and home as if a woman's place was etched in stone.

Bloggers. That is what these women have become. Bloggers who will push every bit of advertising agenda on you that should happen to pay for the various extravagances these same advertising schemes were designed to make you want. Mind you, these bloggers have a voice. These bloggers do actually work. They have drive. They have ambition. Some of them have even gone so far as to be spotlighted in other more popular blogs. 

It's got to make you wonder, this tangent of mine. It's got to make you wonder that women have made any kind of progress at all. 

I return to my rant though, my concern that I have been accused and judged an unfit mother by my all too virtuous coworker who parades herself as some kind of model for us less than virtuous women - misguided atheists, as I recall. And, I begin to wonder that a woman can have turned even against herself, that she can have purported herself to believe in a system that would stifle any opinion she had on the matter at all. She speaks as if she has authority when she has none at all. The words that come out of her mouth are not her words but instead the words of another, higher authority who has impressed upon her and other women like her that her place is in the home. 

I make an effort though to respect the different beliefs and practices of those I come in contact with on a regular basis. I do this because I would like for other people to do the same. You respect my opinion, I'll respect yours. But people often interpret this as an opening, as a chance to insert their opinion in place of mine.

In terms of religion, I have often been interpreted as a person who requires saving, as a person who can be subtly coerced into shameful resignation and redirected onto the right path. I can then earn my place in heaven right next to the reformed psychopathic killer and the cured alcoholic. As I enter the gateway to paradise, the gatekeeper makes some marks in a journal and turns to me and says, "Good thing... we thought you weren't gonna make it." Good thing, I thought I wasn't going to either. Seems I cheated death. 

Again, I return to my rant - my path meanders, and I'm in desperate need of some assured guidance. Words, even empty words that plague my mind. It is not shame though that haunts me. I would not be ashamed of that for which I am proud. Rather, it is disappointment. Disappointment that isolates and consumes me. Disappointment for that which I can hardly grasp... this shared experience, this essence of being, this quintessential truth. The thread that binds us together is the same thread that tears us apart. And the being that is nothingness is the being that has substance as well.

This yellow brick road has taken a turn for the worst... Shit. Fuck. So much for indulging a thought. You've just committed yourself to mutiny. Every man, er, woman for herself. 

"Walk through the fire / Walk til it gets light"

Two songs that are getting me through my days lately: 

Opportunity

I mentioned recently that there were various changes in the works. I couldn't go into much detail because it wasn't yet certain. But, as of Thursday, I can now speak of it with more assuredness. I am being promoted to Commercial Solutions and Response Manager effective Monday and will soon be working days. The promotion means so much to me but one of the most important things is that I will be able to quit working my job on the weekend.

Six and a half years, I've been working 56-90 hours a week, Monday through Sunday. The only days I take off are the ones I'm allotted, some of which I've even used to work one of my other jobs of which I've had as many as four at a time. A couple of years ago, I even attended school full-time to complete my second Bachelor's. So, needless to say, it's a change that's been much anticipated. 

It will mean a substantial increase in job responsibility which makes me a bit anxious. But, I'm looking forward to the new challenges it will present and the ways in which I can maybe make a difference. Another thing that makes me a bit anxious is that I will occasionally have to travel out-of-state to complete various assignments. I won't be gone for any extended period of time, but it will mean that I will have to spend time away from my family. I look forward to the traveling bit. I love to see new places. But being away from my family will be difficult, I'm sure, and I will like coming home to them more than I will leaving them.

So, yeah, that's the short end of it.

I am flabbergasted. For all my bitching and moaning, I couldn't be more ecstatic.