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"Want to go for a run?" Brett asked me early this morning.
"No. Maybe. In a half hour." I mumbled from under his pillow. (His pillow is much more appealing in the morning, and I always reach for it at dawn leaving him pillowless and baffled. But he never reaches for it back, which baffles me.)
EXACTLY a half hour later, Brett jumped up to fling on the lights and started yanking socks on my feet as I kicked away frantically. "You're already wearing running pants AND a sports bra" he surveyed, tossing me my sneakers as I burrowed deeply into the bed. "So, that's convenient. And weird. Let's go."
I looked down and realized I was, in fact wearing work-out clothes. From yesterday. That I didn't work out in. "Oh my God." I whispered to Brett. "Am I letting myself go?"
Brett's eyes widened as he realized he was probably stepping into a minefield at 8 am and was not exactly prepared for it. He pulled me to my feet and said grandly: "You're really pretty."
And we were off.
"I had a dream last night that I was stuck on an island of talking soldier monkeys. The island was haunted, and at night we had to huddle in this circle that protected us from the ghosts. I was a prisoner of the monkey soldiers, obviously, but I started helping them concoct a blessing when you RUDELY WOKE ME UP." I said as we jogged along.
Brett looked over at me and shook his head. "You NEED to be a writer. Or do something creative. Please don't ever get a desk job- your brain is just too...special."
"I'm thinking you mean special in a good way." I retorted as I bent to tie a wayward shoelace that wasn't wayward at all, but saved me from gasping for air in a very unattractive way. (I tie my shoelaces a lot when I run.)
"Of course." He said." I don't even dream at all. And monkey soldiers?! "
As amazingly supportive over my brain as Brett was being, his comments struck a chord in me. I have been looking for jobs. Real people jobs that come after college when you start wanting things like cars without dents and houses and nice bottles of wine. And I was looking for jobs during a time I could not believe in myself less.
I write paragraphs and erase them. I wear workout clothes around the house while not actually...working out. The only thing I accomplished yesterday was a successful nail appointment and a dinner of unburned steak. Brett has been picking up on my subtle cues of depression, (like crying in front of the refrigerator the other day while I ate 6 month old truffles,) and he has handled it gracefully. He peppers the odd compliment into our conversations. (Like last night, he grinned at me and said: "Have I ever told you that you ARE SO GOOD at caramelizing onions?!" I kind of feel like if he had a gold medal in the shape of an onion he would have placed it around my neck in his rapture over said wilted onions.) He has been- in a word- supportive. Supportive over his moody-and-treading-water-half-assedly-wife.
It is not his job to do so, but I appreciate it all the same. And our run this morning reminded me that I could you know...try a little. Like, dress for bed like an adult. Agree that I should have a creative job and GO FOR IT instead of feeling like I'm not good enough, pretty enough, capable, or actually very good at caramelizing onions.
I'll admit I am scared at this new phase in life. I kind of feel out of my element, a hippie Berkeley fish out of water, unsure of the next step or the appropriate outfit required to meet that step. I mean, running pants are awesome- but RUN IN THEM FOR GOD SAKE. Don't sit at the kitchen table in them, working on your resume by adding stupid things to it to amuse yourself. No one cares you know how to make homemade spaghetti sauce. Or can speak Klingon. (And if Brett knew I added weird things like that for about- oh, 3 hours a day, he might not be terribly enthused.) Just- Do It. Live by the Nike slogan. Hitch your wagon to a star. Put it in your pocket. (Same song? No?) Have the eye of the tiger. Get the moves like Jagger.
Just do SOMETHING MELISSA FOR GOD SAKE.
Anyway.
I'm wearing jeans today, so there's that. I will dress these jeans up for dinner tonight with girlfriends, and tomorrow I will submit a spaghetti-sauce-queen-free resume to the local theaters and prepare myself for change.
And I will meet that change with my Capable Smart Girl pants on. And not my running pants.
Although they are terribly comfortable.
And make me look like I work out, like, ALL the time.
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