worried

1.3

Hey folks I'll be posting more soon, just stuck in the time-loop of editing!

Love you!

xxx

Sometimes I worry I'm not a good person.

It's not really anything I do, per se. I'm not overly pushy, I don't partake in workplace gossip, and I always separate my recyclables –– plastic, aluminum, glass. Hell, I even tip twenty-eight percent at restaurants, no matter the of service I got. Yes, to the casual passerby, for all intents and purposes, I probably don't seem like I'm that bad at all. Hell, I might even seem nice.

But nice is not good, you see, and it's the latter of those two words that keeps tripping me up. Nice can be faked. Good can't. And good people don't get the kinds of thoughts that I've been getting lately. Or at least, the ones that do manage to fight them off. Good people dig in their heels, say, "NO!" and banish a thought like mine right into oblivion.

Intrusive thoughts, I've heard them be called before in online forums. Sharp, brief, and ultimately debunkable flickers of the mind. Nothing to worry about, the blogs will tell you. Doesn't make you bad. They're normal, even.

My own thoughts could be categorized as intrusive, sure. They come up out of nowhere. But see, after they manage to pick the lock, to bust down the door in my head, I never seem to rush at them with a hot poker, screaming and swinging like I know I should. I don't dig my heels, no, I let the thoughts sit on the couch, and I fix them a hot tea. Tell me your story... I let the details soak in and emboss onto my brain. I indulge in all the varied, colorful multi-facets. And like a hydra's head, I can't seem to cut one off without two growing back in its place.

Enduring thoughts is what I call them now. Because no matter how hard I try, they always stick around.

Maybe they're not that bad, and I'm not that bad, but it's hard not to feel that way sometimes. Especially when the only place I can get some sort of respite is a subcorner of Reddit that's harmless enough, sure –– except you feel like you ought to put your browser in Incognito mode to go there...

             I blame Emma.

Fucking Emma. I try to live my life in a very polite way, swearing as little as possible, reserving all judgements and shit, but shit. Emma really brings it out of me!

I think it's because in the beginning, before it all went to hell, I liked her. Hell, I admired her. Emma was cool.  She was my friend –– my only equal in an office full of opposites.

            See, I got the job at Our Company around a month or so after I graduated college. The transition was swift and unceremonious, as most in the pandemic were: an online graduation peppered with online alumni-hours, online interviews, and eventually, an online work orientation. I went from student to young professional from the comfort of my childhood bedroom, and I carried on in such a fashion for the first six months at the job. Things were about as fine as they could be back then, given the circumstances, and I kept my head down and did my work under the pretense that It Wouldn't Be This Way Forever. At some point soon, life would actually begin. I would be working at the office, living in the city, getting to know people... I wouldn't just be clocking in, and clocking out, and eating dinner, and going to sleep. There'd be variety. There'd be stakes and sub-plots. It'd be like an episode of Friends or something.

            I was looking forward to it. I came in that first day to the office wearing yellow and orange.

After that, I only really wore black.

It wasn't great, I'll tell you what. The entire first week in-office, I was half convinced I was about the only person under fifty in the whole place. The first few days it was fine enough, nodding and laughing whenever someone gasped at my age, and assisting my coworkers with all their tech issues (even though I'm literally an accountant, we're all accountants...), but by the time Wednesday hit... Oh, it was getting to be too much.