The Lost Pedestrian

there was a time when i just assumed i lived a charmed life. not charmed in the sense of always feeling magical and carefree. but more charmed in the sense that no matter how difficult things were on the outside, no matter how difficult i made things feel on the inside, no matter the magnitude of doubt and self-doubt–that somehow, somehow things would work out for me.

actually, the more turmoil and anguish i inflicted upon myself, the better my chances were of rising above it all…  and rendering it as moot. it was almost a game i played with myself to make sure that my lack of confidence was completely unrelated/disproportional to the reality of any situation.

for example, i would get so nervous before a performance, nervousness escalating into panic, headaches and nausea, i could barely breathe, i had absolutely zero focus. it was a miracle i could even walk onstage at all. but somehow, once i got out there, the audience would be completely engaged and receptive and welcoming. and each time, i thought i had gotten away with something. that it could only be explained as a freak occurrence. a freak occurrence that somehow recurred again and again. for years.

and then it stopped. as inexplicably as it began. i would look at the sky and ponder where did the charm go? what happened?

even some of my friends seemed to think i lived a charmed life, but for completely incongruous reasons. i think they just assumed i was this wealthy kid from the suburbs who never really had much to worry about because there was always that trust fund to fall back upon. which would make me scream inside because some of these people had no idea what felt like to be on the verge of losing everything. If only there were a trust fund.

maybe everybody makes assumptions, mistaking them for observations. i don’t mean “everybody,” but maybe a few people, including me.

these days i still delude myself into thinking that everything is going to work out. that no matter how bad things get, no matter how atrocious my decisions turn out to be… that some person or some circumstance is going to come to my rescue. but lately, this doesn’t seem to be happening. like maybe for the past 15 or 20 years. yet i persist in my delusion. some might call it resilience. some might call it optimism. some might call it naivete.

i think about this a lot with my new job because i made the choice of one job in one city over another job in another city– and this might be at the top of my list of really, really bad awful choices because … well, i’ve never used the word “contempt” before, but that’s the word that i can’t get out of my head when i think of this workplace i seem to have chosen. i never even knew what contempt meant before these days.

but still, i can just sense that something is going to work out for me because it always does. even when it doesn’t.  things are meant to be this way in order to pave the way for something really good that’s about to happen. but the only way it can happen is to first get through this not-so-good thing. and i can only get through that with the help of outside agencies (gods, animal spirits, muses, angels, protective presences and essences).

some one or some thing is always there to rescue me (I hope). Where are they now?