Back to change

I’m different.
Now.
For some reason, one month later, after stuffing life in and out of luggage, learning to cram my liquids into clear plastic bags and going through airport security enough times that I know the art of putting shoes, jacket and laptop into bins in just the proper manner so as to be pulled out and back on quickly, I’m changed.

I don’t feel so very different. I feel like someone racing against time, time spent in lines, on planes and across time zones, to do what I said I’d do. You want good user data. I told you I would get you good user data. Fuck, I hope I get good user data. I hope I don’t miss my flight home.

It’s what keeps me constant in this time zone tour that I find amusing. My anchor is my ipod. There’s tracks I listen to for meditating or exercise. Especially there’s the “Hard Candy” playlist I come back to every time I’m heading from hotel to meeting. Each song has the line “no one’s gonna stop me” in there at least once. In five minutes I’ve gotten the pep talk I need. I’m no longer someone nervous about not knowing what she’s doing simply from fear of stepping over the precipice into a new challenge. This is the opportunity to move, act, and inquire that I’ve hoped for and there’s simply no room for hedging or hiding behind some girlish façade. The only thing telling me that I might be doing badly or not knowing what I’m really doing at all is just fear. Fuck the shyness, I can do this. If I turn up the volume that scared voice can’t compete. No one’s gonna stop me, now.

I don’t feel so very different. I feel, well, tired. Tired but determined. What tells me something is different are the looks reflected back to me in other people’s faces. Some of them are funny looks. Some of them I’d say border on flirtation if it weren’t simply too inappropriate for that to be the case. Some of them are congratulatory recognition.

I can’t live there, though, in that reflected face. It’s just not safe. It’s liquid plastic, unable to truly support anything real. The real part I never get to see. It will never show up in the mirror no matter how many times stop to I do my hair and make sure my suit’s fit is impeccable. I can’t see it but I get to see with it if I don’t take my own tunes too seriously.
For now.