Sweet Nothings

It was my birthday a couple weeks ago, and among other birthday greetings, I received an email from my ex wishing me a nice day and wondering how I was doing.  N and I hadn’t spoken for many months after a few tense conversations, but I had thought about him from time to time, curious to know how his summer internship had gone, and how he was doing in general.  However, I didn’t want to be the first to make contact since my leaving was a big shock to him.  We’ve been apart for nearly a year now, and I am a happier, better person.  If he wasn’t, I didn’t want to make it look as though I was rubbing it in his face.

In a follow-up email, he mentioned he’d been seeing someone since April, which, for me, made it seem safe to meet to talk.  We agreed on a cup of coffee on a Sunday afternoon.  As I walked from the car to the cafe, I smoked a cigarette and stayed calm: this would be no big deal, and really, it probably needed to be done since we lived in the same town and ran the risk of running into each other anyway.  As soon as I saw him break into a huge smile upon realizing it was me walking toward me, I knew it might be trouble.

N and I sat for about 45 minutes, going back and forth on events, jobs, school, and families.  But there was so much I wasn’t telling him: that I was in love with J; that I spent half my nights out, drinking and hanging out with friends; that I didn’t miss him at all, and felt sort of disgusted to think we’d ever been together; that he was essentially my big mistake, and that I really didn’t want to think about him at all anymore, and most days, didn’t.  I’m not sure what he wasn’t telling me, but I honestly don’t think there was much for him to say, since he seemed to be doing exactly the same things with the same people at the same times as he had when we were still together.  I kept thinking how grateful I was that I no longer had to endure his boring existence.  I could see in his eyes that he still felt something for me, still pictured me as the thing he wanted me to be, the thing which I am not now and will never be again.  

N is okay–he’s not a bad person, and I didn’t leave him because he did anything wrong, per se.  I know a million people out there have spent too much time in a relationship with someone who was so clearly wrong for them, but it still baffles me that I could have been with N for nearly 8 years without seeing it–without wanting something better for myself.  I can blame it on my youth, or my insecurity, or the fact that he changed, and I changed, but there’s still this black hole that seems to have pulled those 8 years from me.  I am now who I was before I met him, but I was not that person when we were together.  I keep trying to replay the early years to see what it was that kept me hanging onto him, mostly so that I will not fall into that trap again.  Was I attracted to him?  Did I just want what he had to offer as a one-day successful lawyer/businessman?  Did I like the fact that he was smart, and he challenged me academically?  Did I like that he was wholesome, and was I letting my maternal instinct guide me to someone who would want a house and children and pets?  I think yes, to all of these things.  I got what I thought I wanted with N, and then discovered that it was not actually what I wanted at all.  I’m not ruthless or smart enough to keep up with Wall Street, I’m certainly not wholesome, and I hate suburbia and am not even sure I like kids.  Perhaps if I had waited a little longer before really jumping in with N, these things would have become clear, especially after we left the bubble of our Christian college.  

As I got back into my car after that awful cup of coffee, I felt sick.  I didn’t want to see N anymore: the memories were too disturbing, and I’ve clearly moved on from that phase of my life.  I know it happened, and I can’t change it, and it brought me to where I am today, but there is no reason that I have to relive it, so I won’t.  The things that are important to me now–J, my job, my friends, and even my cats, I can’t share with N–we can only get so far before there has to be a wall of protection for both of us.   I wish him the best, but I think it’s better if we just leave what’s done alone.

A few weeks ago, my former employer, Z, called me to assist them with a cake project–they are caterers, and had agreed to produce something that needed more expertise than they had anticipated.  I was always the resident pastry person there, and so I was naturally happy to help them out of this bind.  I used one of my days off from my current job, P, to work at Z.  P has a policy about taking on work that is a “conflict of interest,” but I knew it was a one time shot, and for the most part, I kept it to myself.  I completed the job, and still got everything done that I needed to at P–one didn’t really affect the other, or so I thought.

This weekend was also Labor Day and my birthday.  I knew P was going to be busy, so I made lots of extra cakes and worked 8 hours of overtime.  I took Sunday and Monday off so that I could celebrate my birthday, feeling that I had produced as much as I could have, and that I was on par with the needs of the store.  Or so I thought.

When I returned to work today, Tuesday, almost all of my cakes and pastries had sold, which I was happy about, because I could start fresh for the week.  The pastry director, who comes down to help me whenever she can, was here today, and when she disappeared for a half an hour, I wondered if something was wrong, but didn’t give it much of a thought.  Turns out she was discussing my work with Z with the higher-ups at P, and I was getting written up for it.  Fair enough–I had violated the policy.  The problem was that the wrong accusations were flying.  They were trying to say that I should have put the energy that I used at Z into P, and that I was wrong to take a day off when we were running out of product.  But we didn’t run out until Monday, a day I would’ve taken off anyway, because it was my Birthday.  

I don’t know how I feel.  I’m getting underpaid for the job that I do, I bring a lot of money to the company, and I’ve been told to keep my overtime as low as possible. If I hadn’t helped out Z, I don’t believe anything different would have come of my week at P, and yet I now have a blemish on my record, and my wrist has been repeatedly slapped for trying to keep my overtime down and eliminate unnecessary waste by producing only what I think will actually sell.  And then there is my humanity–the part of me that wanted a little extra cash, the chance to see all my friends at Z for a few hours, and two days off in a row to celebrate my birthday and hang out with my boyfriend.  I have long struggled with this work/personal life balance: I am a people-pleaser, and I take great pride in my work–I always want to do a good job.  But at this stage in my life, I’m also realizing that fulfillment comes from people, fun, and all the things that go beyond work.  In short, I feel that P put some pretty high expectations on me, and that I should’ve have just kept my mouth completely shut about the work I did at Z.  But I’m also not a liar, and I had such a great day there that I wanted to share it.  Stupid, stupid.  

Does a company even have a right to impose these rules on their employees?  Shouldn’t one be able to do what one wants in their free time, especially if their work is creative?  I’m not really sure.  It’s not as though I’m this super-star pastry chef who is making tons of money but is trying to build my fame and be greedy.  Are doctors only allowed to work at one hospital or clinic at a time?  Are artists only allowed to design for one brand?  Should chefs only be allowed to work in one kitchen?  I remember having a professor who taught at both Harvard and Boston University, and no one seemed to think that was wrong.  

The pastry director said she turned me in because she feared that I would keep taking on extra jobs, and that I would fail to put in the hours necessary at P to get through the busy holiday season ahead.  This thought never crossed my mind, and seems like it could’ve been handled by just asking me, especially since we are friends, and I would have been honest and told her hell no, that my job is stressful enough, and that I only did this as a one-time favor and had no more cake conspiracies planned.  But we live and work in a world where everyone is out for themselves, me included.  You either have to play by the rules, watch your back, or in some cases, both.