Bakery Freewrite

Okay, I am writing this without a topic planned in advance. When I started my blog it was less of a journal and more of a collection of essays. As my depression reduced I interestingly wasn’t as motivated to write, and I stopped posting, until I eased off he pressure and just started writing what was on my mind without copy-editing it. This could be the next level of that, to not even have the structure of a topic.

How am I doing? Right now I am doing pretty well. I am sitting in a fancy café, with whole grains and organic ingredients. It upsets me that you have to go to a fancy restaurant to get whole grain or natural peanut butter. And it’s because we are socialized that way. Skippy is our comfort food instead of simply blended peanuts, so the market demands crap food. If Americans, like Europeans, were raised to eat normal foods, not chemical concoctions, we would have restaurants that serve our demands.

It made me so mad. The word “Bakery” is in the title of this restaurant, but to get toast with peanut butter was a big ordeal. I went to the front, and said “I would just like toast and peanut butter” she sent me to the self-serve line. The person in the self serve line sent me to the front, and I went back to the front and the waitress escorted me to the self serve counter and said “This woman would like some toast with peanut butter” When it arrived it was buttered toast with a side of peanut butter. Come on.

I am getting better at being assertive, I spoke up a little, but I was a little whiny about it. If I continue to practice I hope one day I will be assertive and authoritative without making people feel bossed around. I wish to be a person who demands to be treated well, without being a demanding or difficult person.

Interestingly, my current roommate thinks I am assertive. I can tell from the way she was telling me that she thinks I am too assertive. That is okay with me, because I think she is passive aggressive, so I prefer my perspective, it takes more strength to be assertive in my opinion.

If there is one issue in my life that I can benefit from addressing it is my sense of being unimportant. When the Japanese tourists continuously got up during my beverage service I felt like they were saying “I don’t give a shit about you, or the job you have to finish, fuck you” they weren’t saying that, they were thinking “I have to go to the bathroom.” I think it is terribly inconsiderate that they wouldn’t notice that I was having to back way up and bump into passengers because they got up, but from my Toronto flights, I have observed that Japanese passengers see flying differently. I could even expand that to say Asian tourists, because today a man got up during my service, and he was Asian, but didn’t look Japanese. I think that Asian airlines are more concerned with customer service, where all American airlines care about is enforcing FAA laws (because they have to) and profit. I assume that flight attendants in Asia behave more like hostesses, I even question if they make people stow their belongings, because on every Toronto flight I swear I am telling three people to stow their bags.

So again, the people getting up yesterday were from a different culture, they were very gracious and friendly to me, but at the moment that it was all happening I wanted to cry. I felt like they were telling me I was worthless. I felt like they were spitting in my face. But they weren’t. It didn’t help that when I asked their guide, kindly, to make an announcement in Japanese that bags had to be all the way underneath the seats, that he said “I don’t speak Japanese, but I can tell them, they know, they have been on 4 flights so far” he basically was saying “fuck you.” He basically was telling me that what I had to say didn’t matter. Most tour guides of foreign passengers are very friendly and are happy to help that way. He was a dick, and it set the stage for me to feel undervalued.

But again, when I am treated wrong, I get very upset. I think it is a combination of being mercilessly teased in elementary and middle school and being brushed off by my dad when he was drinking. Then, all of these years being depressed means I have spent a lot of time just letting things go, because confrontation would require more energy than I could muster. So being insignificant, low on the totem pole, and pushed around is what I am used to feeling. I want nothing less than to feel that way. This is maybe my biggest demon. I want to be important, I don’t feel important, I don’t have an important job, so when someone doesn’t treat me like I am important it really stings, so I recoil or snap back.

So that is something to work on, or to just examine. I am not depressed, but I have been severely depressed since 2001, so it is a big part of my habits, even though I was never willing to claim it as my identity. When someone would say something about the kind of person I am I would get so mad, I would think “You don’t even know me, you have only seen me the way I am right now.” I am glad that is the case, I am glad that I still identify myself as the healthy person, even if I have been sick more than I have been healthy.

That is another issue for me. Identity. I have no clue who I am, how I should be, who I should be with. For me it isn’t as important where a person is as where they are going. If I don’t have a goal about what kind of person I want to be then what direction do I go in? This is especially difficult with my career. I don’t know what I want for my future, I suspect it is more than working for a regional airline, and I don’t feel safe in depending on falling in love with a financially stable person so I can raise my children as my full time job. Anyway, I want that a little less now, or I want it, but only after developing a strong identity.

Life is a journey isn’t it? I am so unsure of everything, but I suppose I could stop needing to be sure and instead just live. That seems too simplistic thougj