I'm wearing a suit today. It 's a jacket-n-skirt kind of suit. It's also 38 degrees outside. I feel half-naked and exposed to a hostile climate. I haven't worn a skirt-suit at this job ever, I'm pretty sure. I know I came to the interview in my black Talbots pant suit. That was over five years ago. Then over the next four years, I gained 20 or 30 pounds. In the past year, I've lost 50 pounds. I still have another 20 pounds to lose before I start feeling truly conceited. ;-) Anyhoo, aren't you dying to know why I bothered to brave the icy-elements with nothing more than pantyhose to protect my lower extremities?
I got invited to an open house for a charitable organization focused on children's needs. Which, as its name implies, does not discriminate. It's an OPEN invitation. And yet, I'm taking it seriously and very much feel honored to be going. Because my social life is so thin, so desperate...basically, my social life is the third Olsen twin.
So, this moment-with-a-skirt-on has come about because I've decided to attend this open house today. Why? As you will see in tomorrow's post, this is not my kind of thing (yes, I'm post-editing my post...always striving to make things goodnuff or even better).
Simply put, I need community service involvement, for a number of reasons.
The first reason is: I'm not really doing anything
(other than sending my daughter to Girl Scouts...they delivered Christmas cards last night to a nursing home...serving by proxy, that's what I'm doing), and I feel guilty about that. I need to do more. Gray's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives just isn't cutting it anymore for me.
Second reason: I need to meet like-minded people, hopefully competenet, driven, impressive people who will help keep me inspired.
I like feeling inspired (such as by the other bloggers that I follow. Love you guys!). And this past year, I've discovered how much I am led by example. I am not proud of this. But it is what it is. So, to stay inspired, I must surround myself with inspirational people. Yes, yes, this plan is doomed from the beginning, because you're not supposed to rely on other human beings for such things because people are inherently flawed and will let you down, blah, blah, blah. Again - it is what it is. I am prepared for this eventuality. I understand that people are flawed. Good lord, look at me, for starters. Yeah, ok. But I say: so what. They are also amazing and inspirational and I choose to see the glass as half-full on this point.
Third reason: ya'll know this was going to come around to thinking about law school in some kinda way...well, yeah, duh...some community service wouldn't hurt me when I finally DO submit an application.
Now, I may never get that far. I make 6 figures. I have time to kill at work. The benefits are outstanding. My boss is a sweetie-pie. Plenty of paid time-off. For instance, I am free to attend this open house at 4pm today. Our work day ends at 5pm. I will not lose any money or use any leave time, either. It's the same as if I'd stayed at my desk 'til 5pm. But in fact, I will be gone from here around 3pm. So, that is a lot to walk away from. And, if my husband never re-enters the workforce again, well, there goes the whole law school plan. So, reason number three is a bit weak.
Fourth reason: It may actually help somebody who needs help.
Fifth reason: It sets a good example for my daughter.
Sixth reason: My husband fully supports the idea and it would please him.
Since I am uncannily skilled in displeasing him (the things I say sometimes! whew! the other day I told him I'd fire him if he were paid help...niiiiiice...), finding something that he supports is always of assistance in keeping our marriage on track. Which we struggle with at times. Marriage is a lot of work. At least, it is for us.
Seventh reason: I don't really have a seventh reason, but I didn't want to end this on a sour note about my marriage. After some thought, a seventh reason would be that I will meet new people and go to new places in town that I've never been to (places I've heard about but have never seen the poverty first-hand), and it will open new doors for me (other service projects?), new sense of awareness, plus give me something new to talk about. It might give me the confidence or strength or whatever to get involved at my daughter's school a little more. Or the sense to stay away.
So, I'm wearing a suit today and feeling kind of significant. I usually feel insignificant, so today I'm pretending that it's the other way around. I want to make a difference. I want it to matter that I got out of bed today. So today, I'm going to the open house in my skirt-suit and pantyhose and pretending that it matters. Because, really, it does.
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1 comment:
It's been two months since I wrote this post, and I still think about it. I'm still surprised I got no comments on it, too. Not because I think it's a great piece of writing or provocative in an obvious way, but because this was a very substantive post for me. I said a lot in this post, shared a lot about myself, talked myself into making a significant commitment to a worthy cause, and obviously making that commitment was something that didn't come easily for me. But it doesn't sting, the lack of comments, because I see a lot of substantive posts by other bloggers that go un-commented. I mean, you can see a piece of that person's essence, and nobody lifts fingers to keyboard in acknowledgement of it, of them, of their visibility, their exposed vulnerability. 0 comments. I will forever be perplexed by that.
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