It took me 10 mins to clean off my car this morning, 30 to get to JC Penney's. Instead of growls from those higher than me on the Penney's totem pole, I got applause for showing up at all. I work in the home department, and most of our crew didn't show up for work because of the snow.
My feet hurt; they aren't just sore, they ache all the way to my knees. This ache crawls up my back and neck and behind my eyes and into my brain and then comes out in crabby dialogue with my family. I want a massage. A vacation, rather.
Teacher's don't work during Christmas week--at least, not Christmas Eve. I will tomorrow. My body will be working, but I will be thinking. I'll go through twenty story ideas that will never make it to my fingertips (onto paper, a screen, or even the air outside my head to tell someone, because I work alone now.) Today I started to make up a story in my head, but the story turned into dialogue with old boyfriends. Good Grief. Anyway, I want to be a teacher.
I don't mean to complain, but to document this feeling--this moment of sore feet--because some day I will be a teacher, or something else. Hopefully this will be the last Christmas in Retail, so help me God. And then I can look back and say "Yeah, that sucked. Glad I'm not there any more."
One more day of work, and then I have three days off.
When I got out of the store at 5:05pm today, the sky was bright blue and streaked with pink clouds. I climbed into my salted Stanley car and recognized the sky as a sign that the world outside the department store, the bigger picture, was much more beautiful than the smaller inside world that I occupy for most of my day.
