My dream job

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb,

I've been behaving in the most appalling way with my parents. Last night, I wasted an evening doing things for and communicating with people that really don't care, don't know and can't help even if they did. I haven't written from my heart in weeks. So, when my mommy came home early from work to be with me, I was more restless and frustrated than a celibate Paris Hilton. I didn't want to go for a walk and shop for clothes. We sat in front of the TV and there was nothing on. I said, "TV is stupid" and I turned it off. My mom said I should watch Supernatural until dinner was ready. I said I didn't want to watch Supernatural. And I didn't because Jensen Ackles breaks my heart. Is that silly? I don’t care. But I guess I kind of do because I mentioned it. I'm contradicting myself, but so be it. I contain multitudes, in the words of Walt Whitman said.

Then I said that I would exercise. Then I said I didn't want to exercise because it was boring. I think I half-screamed in frustration. That sudden savagery frightened me.

I feel like tearing myself apart and reassembling myself into something that I can understand, that other people are not frightened to touch. What's happening to me?

This morning, just the sight of my mother coming home from her morning shopping trip made me want to yell with frustration. They let me sleep, instead of taking me with them – more as a kindness to themselves than to me, I guess.

And then my mother told me that because someone was going to my home country, they wanted to buy my grandma a sweater. They'd just come from the supermarket, but it just hadn't crossed their mind while they were in the supermarket. So now, after lunch, they wanted to go, in what I perceived to be a waste of everyone's time because of bad planning. My mom asked if I wanted to go with her. I can't remember a time when I have been angrier. "Don't piss me off on a weekend, Ma. Both of you just came from the supermarket and you didn't buy it. I'm always dragged here or there on parental maintenance – taking you walking, having to put up with Dad's coddling."

My brother went to see U2 – 3D last night. It's not fecking fair. I feel like a prisoner in my own house. I go from work to office and back. And I sit in front of my computer again, trying to make people thousands of miles away care about me. But they usually turn their attention away from me just before I can heal, and keep it to themselves and their own ordinary lovely lives just long enough for me to wonder what the hell is wrong with me. But what does it matter, even if they do? I can't love myself. Terrible am I, child, even if you don't mind.

So what does all of this have to do with my dream job? Because of my crap job with its crap managers, anxiety is the only feeling I've felt in a long time. So I figure that if I can get a kinder job, maybe I can be kinder to myself. I know that's not entirely true. But I need to believe that change is possible and that it will come.

This is what I wrote in my journal some days ago:

"What would an ideal job be for me? I can work as long or as short hours as I like. I can dress according to the people or situation I'm in. I get to meet interesting people on a daily basis and most of all, I create. I can stand on my head, sit on the carpet, cross my legs, stretch my arms, belly-dance. There should be no restrictions on my movement and hence on my creativity. I can take a day off to pick away at a personal project, should I choose, whether it has to do with family, a creative or a domestic project. Should I choose to take my mother museum-hopping, I can do so. I would like a job in which I could collaborate as much as possible, like we do in hitRECord. We help each other tell stories. Synergy just doesn't happen in corporate environments – at least not in the one I'm in. Yes. Ultimately, I want to tell a story and tell it good so people can enjoy it."

But most of all – and this is something I know a job cannot create – I want to be happy around other people. In my head, I see them yelling to me from across the street, inviting me over to their house for Passover, wanting me to meet their families. I see myself living with people not bound to me by blood, but who love me like blood anyway.

My relatives' behaviour – particularly my eldest brother and my aunts – have led me to believe that blood may not be all its cracked up to be.

I see someone (not my mother) crying at my wedding, threatening my husband with grievous bodily harm if he hurts me and both of us weeping in each other's arms as I leave her at the airport. I see a friend trustworthy enough to be my maid of honour.

I want to feel worth my skin, of the grace God has given me. I want to be of some use to someone. A lot of use – indispensable – to others.

Why do I feel so tragic all the time? It's really tiring.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,
Zed.