muddling through

My birthday was yesterday. I thought that with age comes wisdom.
I think someone has been lying to me. I may be more confused than I ever was.

Some of it is outside of my grasp though, belongs to others. This fact just confuses me even more. It leaves me vulnerable and exposed, with things I wish to say (but am too afraid to hear the answer to) lingering on my parted, expectant lips.

This morning I woke up and felt a little bit sad. I hoped for a revelation of knowledge, some definitive answers, to slither into my ears, wind up into my brain and nestle there while my eyelids fluttered in sleep. No epiphany rattled me awake. Perhaps it is just slowly evolving....



A few days ago an older gentlemen stopped me at work. I was rushing back to the kitchen, in my new manager efficiency role, when he called my name. (It still catches me off-guard when I hear strangers saying my name as though they have known me forever. Peppering there conversations with it, casually enquiring things from me with it posed before or after the question mark. Name tags can be quite a bitch.) He preceded to yammer on and on about the conference he was in town for and what there was to do around here and where I liked to go and....
I nodded. I smiled and laughed with my mouth open. I pretended that I had not been in a hurry to take care of business, to run back to the kitchen then back out onto the floor of the restaurant and then check in with the servers and then....
He asked me my future plans. I mentioned several, one being perhaps grad school. he advised not. Grad school, apparently, is for ugly girls. Albeit smart ones, but girls that can not get a man and will never marry and own cats and compensate for their lack of beauty by throwing themselves into studies and work.

But, I am too attractive for all that. I won't have any problem finding a husband and having him support me. Pop out a few kids, and that'll be that.

I know he was trying to compliment me, but I believe he called me stupid. And what if the life of a "pretty girl" is not what I want.

And I already own two cats. Does that mean I have "ugly girl" inclinations?

But, I smiled up at him, even when he grabbed onto my arm and oh so casually left it there. My teeth began to grind a little, so I opened them up into a hearty laugh. Ten minutes later I finally extracting myself from his clutches, without an indignant roll of my eyes or a correction of his serious lack of reality.

Instead I went back to the kitchen.