For My Valentine

I started crying. I opened the car door after the most trying of days and there he was, that smile, and Tim Armstrong singing our anthem. A mile down the road and he looked over and my clandestine weakness was laid asunder but I couldn't reply to his "what's wrong," more than with an "I don't want to go to the bank anymore, let's just go home." I just started crying and I didn't know why until ten hours later.

I had taken a bath and drank too much red wine and garnered some strength from the Meditations, and thought the plight of the day to be behind me until I laid down to sleep. "Tomorrow," I thought, "I have to go back." I pictured the face of the new secretary looking at me the way she does. She knows that I loathe her, or anyway, the look she gives me intimates that she knows that I loathe her. I can't hide, in my return gaze, the fact that I can't stand her inability to come to work on time, her shitty attitude with the kids, her sorority girl way of life. Usually I blame Dad for my indefatigable sense of justice. It is rarely quenched and unless those scales are perfectly balanced I am Porcelina with a pea under the very bottom mattress. She used to try to win me over but her irritating over-niceness has given way to a constant attempt to prove herself more competent than me. It's depressing because it never works. It's depressing because it exists at all.

I have to go back. At that moment I was gripped with a fever-like paranoia. "There is nowhere that I fit!" The thought rolled over and over in my mind until I couldn't take it any longer. I got out of bed and opened the living room door. "Will you crawl into bed with me for a little while?"

Head on chest. I hate that I try to hide the fact that I'm crying. "What is it?" He was running his hands through my hair.

"We had this staff meeting after work today. They had brought in two people to administer this 'personality' test; it was supposed to be a fun activity, something that would help us learn more about ourselves. I've heard from more than one person that the new Superintendent is using this test to figure out how best to approach and negotiate with each of us." My breathing was choppy and his chest was soaked. "You are assigned one of four colors based on how you respond to the different parts of the test. Four colors! How can anyone possibly believe that, out of the entire range of human reactions, emotions, and personalities, an individual can be winnowed down to one of four possibilities?!

Everyone thought it was this great game, they were laughing and answering the questions and eagerly awaiting the outcome of the test so they'd know which color they were. I felt trapped. It suddenly struck me that no matter what I decide to do with my life, I will always have to interact with people who believe in this kind of thing. There is no escaping it. The moment I had this realization I felt more depressed than I have ever felt before. There is no place for me to fit."

He just held me tighter and after a few minutes, when my breathing had settled down, he said,

"You fit right here."

And it suddenly dawned on me that really, life is no bigger than a 6' x 6' square. I fell asleep like that, puffy-eyed and wheezing, held securely by those strong arms, and I thought about how improbable this course of events that has brought me here. How sacred and blessed and improbable, and how lucky I am despite the labels that I would try to pin on my life. Somehow, I think, we Jindras have this Russian penchant to struggle only for the future, and to neglect the simple beauty of here and now.

You do not have to be good. You have only to let the soft animal of your body love what it does...