Mama told me growing up is hard but she didn't say it sucks more than Jenna Jameson at career peak

I have been a great sinner since at 4 I poured my mother’s French perfume onto my father’s Persian rug and found the whole act of it much more titillating than keeping my hands to myself.  I have never asked why?  It’s always been why not?  The only why I ever asked myself was why being bad felt so good.

I think a couple of months ago I finally repented.  Being young and stupid was fun while it lasted but the jig is up.  I knew one day I would get too old for foolishness but it crept up on me like a perv in a dark alley. 

The truth is people have started calling me m’am.  For my self esteem, it’s a crisis of BP oil spill proportions.  The problem is I’m not cut out for a 9 to 5.  After my parents died I lost the ability to see any meaning in office work or the higher purpose in taking abuse from your boss.  I’ve developed an intense fear of shuffling someone else’s papers in front of a fax machine for the rest of my life.  If you are a trader and getting on the floor every morning to you is what a fix is to a junkie in withdrawal, that’s a whole different story.  You love it, you live it and you breathe it.  I have no such talents.  All I have ever amounted to was a miserable office assistant.  What really used to offend me was that people acted like I should have been kissing their feet for giving me the once in a lifetime opportunity to keep their files organized and fill up the coffee machine. 

In my opinion office politics and hierarchies are worse and crueler than middle school.  I once got fired because my male boss developed a habit of obsessively winking at me every morning.  The queen of the office began feeling like she was losing her underling to forces she couldn’t control and so off I went.  As if I personally asked him to please undress me daily with his shifty eyes. With unemployment so high, what is that word employers use to describe employees?  I’ve heard “disposable” and “replaceable”, like you are a Gillette razor blade and not a human being that needs to eat.

Sometimes I dream so hard about being a writer.  I travel the world.  I walk around ancient Greek ruins, visit tribes in Africa and eat falafel in Lebanon.  Of course someone pays me to write about it all so that I never have to stop.  Of course I’ve already received the national book award for my bestselling novel back home and now someone uses it as an escape the same way I’ve used my favorite books.  I picture it so clearly I almost believe it but not enough to forget that I’m broke and bills won’t leave my mailbox alone.  Still I persist with my delusions every day, food for my struggling soul and all.  How, how do I get there for real?  From here?