I lay in bed hacking and hawking up gross hard and runny green pieces of the flu. The apartment is quiet except for the sound of lawnmowers and voices from the men going about their routine manicuring the foliage. My stomach begins to grumble as I head to the bathroom fearing what my reflection would reveal. I avoid the mirror to sit on my porcelain throne. It's January and for being in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, it was crisp, cool, and bright. Too bad I couldn't enjoy it on my lunch break. With a sigh, I wipe my ass wondering if my manager would call me sometime this week to give me a speech about my work ethic even while this sick, which I've not been in years! I slowly get up, pull my underwear and fluffy pink pajama pants on with cows printed on them. It's a thing for me. Cows are cute and they remind me of the simpler life I had in Connecticut. They are also so cute! I couldn't avoid the mirror this time. My sweater matched the bottoms and there's a teardrop stain of some kind, maybe soup down the middle. The unforgiving glow of the bulbs of light above the sink and ceiling showed me a tattered 28-year-old bedridden screw-up. My eyes are swollen red, my otherwise year-round tan was ashen from a beige with yellow undertones to quite nearly just yellow with a bit of depth in it. A nest of long dark brown hair sits atop my head in a messy bun. It's starting to curl as the temporary straightener is fading out. It's a task that has become the most tedious but it cuts down on time in the bathroom. Then, of course, I poke at my face of red blotchy, and bumpy volcanic acne due to hormonal imbalance! I've used medical grade washes and creams, nothing seemed to work! So I just do my best with what I got. I never like spending more than 15 minutes in the bathroom. Sighing at the carnage night of tossing and turning, I brush my teeth. Do I have to switch out my toothbrush after the flu?
My phone rings to the tune of a rock alternative version of the infamous Apple ringtone. I have an Android like a sensible human being would.
It was my boss.
"Hello?", sounding raspy and zombie-like.
"Do you have a doctor's note?"
Victor, 'boyfriend' of 5 years works in the same building just in the Information Technology department. On the way out the door, I told him the letter was on the dining table. Did he not fucking grab it?
I sigh, exasperated, dragging my feet as quickly as possible around the corner of the master bedroom. Nope.
"Victor was supposed to hand it to you--"
The wannabe business mogul for a debt relief firm cut me off with an annoyed grumble. "Put it in his hand and have him give it to me. We need you back asap!"
He hung up before I could reply. Marcus is a fucking dick. He parades the office like he's among the Gods. Sure he's attractive but his attitude makes him less so. The stove read 10:37 and the microwave was always a minute fast. I walk into the small kitchen brightly lit up just as terrifying as the bathroom. Am I sensitive to light now?! Odin, my big tabby strolls into the kitchen to nuzzle my ankle. He wants to be fed. His bowl sits barren as usual. Food goes like magic with this one. I place a coffee cup reading, " I don't like Mondays." into the microwave then turn to a cabinet next to the sink pulling out a bag of dry indoor cat food. Odin cries and moves around my legs excitedly. As soon as I add about a handful of feed into his cheap blue Dollar Tree bowl on the floor, he purrs in between bites.
Beep, beep, beep! The microwave chimes signalling that my hot water was ready. There's a box of Chamomile tea already opened on the cold granite stone top. I tear a pack and slip the tea inside dunking it a few times, remembering to take my medication.
I deal with Bipolar disorder, PTSD, OCD, Tourette Syndrome and as it turns out, I am "on the spectrum". My meds help me stay focused, stop my tremors, and manage everything else. The thing is, taking my meds in 2012 after a two year abusive relationship. Last year it took a meltdown to convince me that I needed to get back in the game. Reluctant but hopeful, I started my treatments again in 2016. What lead me to the meltdown were the dreams of a man who was so sweet, his eyes were soft and kind but he would change his look every once in a while. In spite of the changes, I felt the same kind of energy. I've seen him years before and it had been so long since I had seen him last.
Climbing into bed with 2 pills in my hand and tea in the other, I chase the rather large pills with my now warm tea. The men outside had moved to another building so it was quieter. I placed my finished cup on the nightstand. The TV remote sat begging to be used. I really should sleep but with my mind unable to rest, I pointed it to the "smart" TV, clear across the large room and hit the YouTube button. My TV would randomly decide to go black at the most inopportune times like in the middle of a history documentary. I chose a documentary about life after death. Can you believe that people thought the body weight changed when someone died? Can you imagine being buried alive with a string attached to a bell to alert people you weren't dead? My thoughts rummaged through the thought of death and my own attempts. I failed so hard at life that I failed at killing myself too!
In 2009, I received my Associates in Hospitality Management. Instead, I ended up doing nothing for two or three years except drinking and partying. I finally ended up at Dollar Tree doing the bare minimum to contribute to society and smoked a ton of weed. Finally, in 2012 I decided to assist a manager at a high-end grocery store like Whole Foods but for people who don't mind pissing money away on falsely advertised GMO crap. Located in Boca Raton, where the snowbirds fly for the winter, where old people go to die and where the rich and entitled parade like they own every store in the city. Some actually do. Despite coming from an Afro-latin background, I'm a third generation American who can't speak Spanish or Portuguese worth a damn. I can understand simplistic slow speaking Spanish and know how to read warning labels in Spanish. Portuguese isn't really a common language in Broward, but there is a small community in Weston. My grandfather is Bahamian and he dropped his Bahamian British. I don't know family from anywhere outside of the US.
Everyday someone would assume I speak fluent Spanish. I stopped replying in the Spanish I know because it was a waste of time in a fast-paced environment. So I reply in English hoping they understand and not be a dick about the way I won't speak the language. It was hard enough that I couldn't get along with the managers who worked below me. There were too many misunderstandings and my inability to read the room more than a handful of times ruined any kind of respect I had if there was any at all. Not to mention the involuntary jerking around I kept trying to hide and failed. Things fall out of my hands, I sprain my neck, papers fly everywhere, my thumbs accidentally hit the send button to a storewide email for the managers incomplete. Incomplete emails are better than swear words captured by voice-to-text. The head manager has banned me from the bakery because I stress eat all the samples in a corner or hide out in the freezer pigging on frozen deserts. In meetings, I have to control the urge to not eat all of the cookies, cakes, doughnuts, cheese and crackers, and the cute tiny sandwiches from the deli.
Needless to say, I realized after two years of the talk behind my back, the fake pleasantries, embarrassing face stuffed with custard, I had to move on to greener pastures, and...Brian. Brian was the head of Deli. He had started right before I quit. He reminded me of a man from a dream just about a month before. Every time he was close I couldn't breathe. He wasn't my type but he was nice to look at. Brian stood maybe a foot taller than my 5"3', he had dark hair in a buzz-cut. His face looked like a combination of Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds with dark penetrating eyes. He showed up and made my stress eating worse. I would find ways to avoid him but every once in a while I would be assigned to deli to oversee them, make sure the areas were clean, product was placed out on the floor, samples were prepped for the weekend, the self serve had to be switched out, and so on. It required me to work with him in the numbers. Already unable to make eye contact, I was even more unable to look at him so I had to focus my eyes on his name badge. I was already an outcast what can I do?
An office job was offered at my boyfriend's. It allowed me to have weekends off and it paid more. I mournfully said my goodbye to Brian just by watching him walk in to the deli to give the orders to the shift lead of the department. I could barely hear him talk as I tugged at my purse hoping he'd come my way but he didn't. My shift was over and staying any longer in the narrow walkway from the sales floor to the back room was stupid. I slowly walked forward passing the deli and him still talking to his underling. My head hung down the rest of the way out to the parking lot and to the bus stop. I've not ever seen him since but I think of him from time to time, wondering what he's doing. Is he still at the store? did he get married? Does he have any kids? I stopped the documentary about life after death in the ancient world to look at my phone next to me on the bed. I received a text from Victor saying he's going to be home late. In return I told him he'd forgotten the doctor's note in which he replied with a plain, "Sorry". The office is a debt relief firm and while Victor does IT for the entire office, I am an actual Consultant. They hired me based on a lie that I got my Bachelor's from FSU to qualify. I've been working there for two years. No raise but I make a killing anyway.
The company is made up of mostly frat man-boys with tiny dick energy. My ability to fit in failed there too. They would call me "pizza face", "it", and "thing". Ive gotten used to the sexual harassment because I saw no point reporting it as the head of HR himself if guilty for it too. So, I put up with the torment all in the name of money. Every once in a while, I get a fat check but every once in a while I get some lowlife walking past my cubicle flipping his nose up with his finger and snorts, "Piggy piggy!", The fact my desk is cluttered with candy wrappers, crushed chip bags and a drawer filled with a bunch of pastries from the vending machine for my stress eating pleasure does make me a piggy. Ironically, my twin brother Dominic's animal is the Pig. The many rows of cubicles makes it easy to hide the fact I'm eating. To be clear, I'm not obese. I weigh about 160lbs and this weight gain was the result of depression that started in 2010. My weight has only just began to come off since eating more veggies, walking during breaks, avoiding the break room and drinking green tea without sugar in the morning instead of coffee. I think about resuming the documentary yet instead fall asleep.