The Expediters

Some have commented that I am brave, courageous even, but if I am so it was through these seemingly never-ending trials and tribulations that made me so. I have been grown in steely ground and I seek the silky loam of a garden I have never seen. It seems that as fast as heartache and disaster comes, I am there to meet it - its brunt force striking my cheek and knocking me down. But sometimes it seems I can never meet the trouble fast enough, for it has expediters.

While I was living with my boyfriend, in my youth (see Leaving Home and Moving on), a friend of mine helped me get a job with expediters. I had no idea what an expediter was; what I learned is that an expediter helps "push" architectural plans through the department of buildings as their main function. The people I would be working for were a man and a woman who had known each other for years. They were based out of a shared office, several expediting companies divided by cubicle walls, right in the heart of the building housing the department of buildings.

My job was part secretary, part personal assistant. I would go upstairs and file plans with plan examiners, and I would remind the female partner to eat - she was diabetic and had to adhere to an eating schedule. There were already two expediting assistants who seemed to know just as much as the two partners; I felt like an unwanted step-child breaking up a happy family.

From the first day I knew that the female partner didn't like me. She found flaws with everything I did. Two weeks into me working there she began yelling at me, whatever went wrong in that office was instantly blamed on me. Unfortunately, because the company shared space with other companies, everyone who was there could hear this woman call me stupid and all sorts of jackasses at the top of her lungs. One day, she yelled at me so bad, that an intern from another company came to me, pulled me into the stairwell and gave me a hug. He gave me little pep talks almost every week. I would go home so stressed out that I couldn't turn my head from left to right.

I began noticing that the woman rarely yelled at me in front of her partner and it dawned on me - she thought I wanted her man. I asked one of my young co-workers if the partners were dating, she told me they lived together.

After weeks of being subject to being treated like an imbecile, all of a sudden she started being nice to me. There seemed to be peace in the office.

A certain plan examiner started visiting often, dropping off plans. This was highly unusual as plan examiners try to distance themselves from expeditors. One day he asked me to lunch, at the time there was an unwritten rule that I eat lunch at my desk so someone would always be in the office to answer the phone. When we went, the female partner told me to take as long as I wanted. Mr. Plan examiner and I ate lunch together 3 times a week.

One day, the female partner told me that the plan examiner wanted to take me out. I thought about it, plans were being approved at a lightening pace, and there was no more yelling. Although I knew she was pimping me, I chose to go all the same. I expected to have a nice time out - maybe dinner and drinks, but I was treated to something entirely different.

I met him downstairs and got into his shiny sports car. The first stop we made was to his dealer - he wanted to pick up some weed. I never did any kind of drug whatsoever and had no plans to do so - I was so uncomfortable as he rolled into this impoverished neighborhood and walked to a shady corner in a park and made his purchase. For all I knew he could have been purchasing crack, but I didn't have the fortitude to leave the car and go home.

Next, we went back to his place. . . I was mortified. It all made sense; I was supposed to have sex with this man in exchange for fast approval of architectural plans. I was livid. I went upstairs with him and sat at his kitchen table; he poured me a drink and began massaging my shoulders.

I stroked the glass gently, picked it up and swallowed in one big gulp. When he sat across from me I looked him directly in the eyes as he told me to get undressed. I said no, and that it was time for me to go home. He looked baffled, as though I were speaking some alien language, but after some thought; he stood back up and drove me home to my awaiting boyfriend.

I stopped having lunch with the plan examiner and the verbal abuse began again. During the last blowup the female partner had with me she actually came out and said I couldn't have the male partner. The next day I was fired.

I never let anyone speak to me like that again; not CEOs, not Presidents, not Heads of departments. I treated people with respect and demanded it in return. I am human, and I am worth something.

Tomorrow, Breaking Me. . .

Cheater

Kalamay Addict commented, "but i think what matters the most is how we stand up and survive those trials..." Today, I can say that I face challenges head on. I don't bury my head in the sand like an ostrich any more, or run away. I haven't always been this strong - my strength was forged in the fires of calamity and tempered in the waters of ruin. Experience, or mis-experience, is what taught me; I floundered, as most do, in youth - I made messes, some I had no idea how to clean up, and others I had no intention of cleaning up.

It's difficult for me to be honest about the things I've done, exposing tarnishes on my heart, but I've found that truth comforts me. I know that people judge; you may judge me. The fact of the matter is, for me, I've known at a young age what was right and wrong - I felt this in my heart (this too will be a separate blog entry :) ), and so there was no excuse, no matter what words come after this sentence, for what I've done. I'm only setting a scene, trying to evoke a mood, attempting to put YOU, there with ME, for a moment in time. I want you to understand, that not all of the tragedies I endured were inflicted by others - I want you to understand that the significant damage was done by my own hands. The self-degradation, disrespect, and moral carnage of my own actions is what brings us here today.

Anyone who has read Moving On, knows that after Leaving Home, I moved in with a man 16 years my senior in an attempt to escape the pressures I felt at home - and because I thought I was in love. But I had become a play thing for a finicky cat. At times I was toyed with until all used up, at times I was left to my own devices for months, and when he was bored, he would suggest I be a play thing for his friends. No worries though, that never happened. Even a worm knows when he's tunneled deep enough to drown when the rain comes, and that was too deep for me. All the same, I was not equal. I was not in a partnership, and although I had these feelings in my heart of warmth and kindness, and generosity, they were received as pearls presented to swine, and pigs have no respect for gentle hearts.

I wanted to be appreciated and I wanted to have real conversations with someone who wasn't patronizing me or attempting to pander to my youth in exchange for sex. After many months, I got a job just to get out of the house. It wasn't much, I worked in a fast food chain for minimum wage, but it was better than lounging around the house waiting to be used. At my job I made a friend, she was a few years younger than me, and had a slightly troubled home life. I wanted to mentor her, tell her all of the things I had learned up until that point. I wanted to let her know that it wasn't as bad as she thought at home - those feelings are only as heavy as you allow them to be. We spent a lot of time together, talking, watching tv, and eventually going out dancing.

She had a boyfriend, but her mother wouldn't let her go out with him, she was only allowed to go out partying with a girlfriend. That would be me. One night in particular, her boyfriend picked us up and he had a friend with him. We went to a bar. The friend and I talked while my girlfriend and her boyfriend made out. I had a few beers, but then the guy that I was with bought me a drink. As I knocked it back, I asked him what it was called, "liquid cocaine", he said. Then, I just remember blacking out for what seemed like a few seconds. I put the glass down, and he walked me to the car and made out with me. Not once, did my mind say, "Hey stupid, you live with a man that supports you financially, what if he finds out about this?" After we left the bar I went home with my new interest. In his house I heard him call my name over and over again, and I was pleased.

When I got home, I felt guilty, but at the same time I felt justified. If my boyfriend wanted to pimp me out to his friends, I'd rather pimp myself. I felt like I had gotten even in some petty way. Then I realized that I used to have morals around here somewhere, where did I put them? I straightened up, and I started to feel remorseful. I tried to change the things that made me stray; I wanted my boyfriend and me to spend more quality time together and I wanted to be more open with our feelings. He didn't respond well to my attempts to improve our relationship, and I found myself harboring the same feelings that drove me to cheat.

There was this guy I worked with that I had been eyeing since he came on board. We flirted at every opportunity; it finally got to the point where we had to do something with all that pent up sexual energy or both of us would explode. I invited him to my house, when he came over, he was nervous - he knew I lived with an older man and that more than likely he would break his neck if he caught him there. It was my boyfriend's birthday and I was in our bed cheating on him.

When he left, I went with him to attend a class I was taking on my days off. I was almost 2 hours away from home. During the class, I was going over what happened over and over again. Then, I broke out in a cold sweat, I left a condom on the kitchen table and had no idea how to explain it. I called my boyfriend immediately and begged him to come get me from class before he went home after work. I was terrified, I had no idea what he might do if he saw the condom. When my boyfriend came and got me, we talked, and I discovered that he had already been home - but he said nothing about the condom. When I arrived home, I went to the kitchen and stuffed the condom in my pocket. he must have gone straight to the bedroom when he came home and missed the condom lying out in the open. It was a close call and I vowed that I wouldn't cheat again - I'd break up with him first.

Shortly after, I began attending church again, trying to find my spiritual center and re-instate the morals I chose to dismiss so easily.

Tomorrow, Right and Wrong. . .