Dear God,
I started seeing the signs from you a few days before my trip to Los Angeles, and even though I’m sorry I didn’t listen sooner, I’m still mad at you.
First, you put a $70 fee on carrying anything larger than a “personal item” on the plane because you knew I would refuse to pay for it. Well, joke’s on you, God, because I fit everything I needed for a week-long trip to the fashion capital of the United States in a backpack that measured less than a cubic foot. You don’t want me to take anything with me to LA? Fine, I can commit heinous fashion crimes and repeat my wardrobe all week long. I’m still going.
Next, you had the company I interviewed with hire somebody else. I was counting on getting that job, God. I needed it. I needed the money. Not just to take my trip to LA, but to do adult things like pay rent and buy groceries. I thought you wanted me to stop running away, so I decided to stay put. If you want me to stop running, you are going to have to provide me with the reasons and the means to stay. Anyways, I’m still going. My plane ticket was purchased using rewards, I have free lodging, and if I can spend four days in London on less than $100, I can certainly do it in LA.
Then you broke the heater in my car, again. I guess I can’t blame you entirely for this one, but your timing sure does suck. It has been working consistently for a few weeks, and you chose three days before my trip to have it act up again? I’m driving five hours in sub-zero temperatures, and now you want me to do it with no heat in my car? You are definitely a trickster, because you know that since I refuse to pay for luggage I will also refuse to pay for a portable heater that plugs into the cigarette lighter. Well, since you gave me a body that doesn’t provide any heat on its own, I won’t have to worry about needing a defroster for my windshield as long as I breathe lightly or off to the side.
The signs kept adding up, God, and I still refused to listen to you. But I booked a round-trip ticket! I argued with you. It’s just a little trip to visit some friends and get out of the snow for a bit– for once I’m not running away from anything! But I was. I was running away from the windchill that gives you frostbite in ten minutes if you don’t cover your skin. I was running away from wiping asses and being expected to know how to teach students with disabilities without anyone telling me anything about their abilities and limits. I was running away from the frayed nails and torn cuticles that result from repackaging cremation urns from India and shipping them across the country. Why did you give me a college education to spend my days getting people’s drool on my shirt and cutting my fingers on packaging tape and cardboard boxes? If I was getting the same student’s drool on my shirt day after day it would mean that I was a permanent teacher, but every day I come home with different DNA on my clothes because you didn’t want me to get my teaching certificate.
Or maybe you did, and I just didn’t listen.
The last straw was when you ripped my coat on my way out the door. God, I had bad feelings about driving downstate all day, and the signs had been piling up. I was feeling jittery. If you really don’t want me to go, I won’t go. Just tell me. Just give me one more sign so I know for sure. I’ll listen.
And then that car pulled out in front of me and Helen the Honda sans snow tires skidded into the next lane to avoid it.
You win, God.
If you want me to stay, then why is it ingrained in me to GO? Why have you instilled this unfulfilled desire in my heart to see the world if you want me to be still? And if you’re going to clip my wings, could you at least let me have my damn legs? Leaving and going are the only things that makes sense to me, but if you want me to learn how to sit still do you really have to do it so literally? My spirit is already broken; do you have to break my body, too?
I’m mad at you, and I’m hurting.
I get it. I heard you.
Mitten Zest 