Important Day

Today is an important day. “Today is the day I finally get a new job,” she tells herself.

She has been working at the same boring job for 5 years now. Day in day out it is the same thing, over and over again. No thought, no variety. She always told herself that was for the best. She could not do a job where she had to make any decisions. That would be a disaster. But she could not keep holding herself back like that. After all, she had come such a long way from how she used to be.  

When she was younger, she could never decide on anything to save her life. Simple things always sent her into a spiral. Eggs or pancakes for breakfast? Would she like milk or orange juice to drink? It was all too much. What if she chose eggs and the yolk was too runny? What if she chose pancakes and they were thicker than she liked them? What if she ate too many of them and had a stomachache for the rest of the day? Maybe she could just have a bowl of cereal instead. Although then she may just be hungry again in first period because it would not fill her up. She was always late to school, and always started the day on an empty stomach.

As she left school and grew up, her decision-making skills did not improve. It frustrated all those close to her. She made friends with the type of people that would take charge, and tell her what she wanted, and what they were going to do. Her best friend would even choose meals for her when they went out to eat, to save everyone some grief. She accepted this as the way things were going to be.

 She went to college for a few years but ended up dropping out. Her major was undecided the entire time. Once she dropped out, she went to a temp agency and jumped from one job to the next for awhile until she found one that stuck. She told herself she would just work there for a little while until she decided on what she wanted to do for a real career. Not just a job that paid the bills.

The next thing she knew, it was five year later. She was bored. She was unhappy. She did not have to make any major decisions, but she found herself becoming listless.

During those five years however, she did find herself being able to get into a routine.

She meal prepped every Sunday for the rest of the week. She rotated the same few food items for lunches and dinner. She went to work, she came home, she watched some TV with dinner, she went to sleep, and then she woke up and did it all over again. And she was ok with it for a while. Occasionally she would throw in Saturday night drinks with her best friend, or Sunday brunch with a few ladies from work. Even then though, she went to the same places, and she ordered the same thing.

About four and a half years into this routine is when she started to realize she was bored with her life. Then five years in, she realized that even though she was not having to make any decisions, that she had to have decided on her routine items to begin with. And she had.  She had made decisions of what her life would be, of what her meal plans would be, of what TV shows she would watch every night. She had done it. She had done it without stressing about what if she was choosing the wrong meals. What if there was a better show on opposite of what she was watching that she would never see. If she had decided all these things, and they had worked for her for so long, maybe she was cured of her indecisiveness. She had made all the decisions on her own, and everything had turned out ok. Maybe, just maybe, she could start changing things up. She could start deciding on different things for different days, and different weeks. She could change things up from time to time, and there would not be any dire consequences. Maybe on Tuesday she would have spaghetti instead of lasagna. Who cared? The world would not come to an end if she did a word search puzzle instead of a crossword puzzle. And if she did not like it? Then she would just do something else the next day. It was no big deal.

She started out small. She ate a burrito on Wednesday instead of her usual salad. Her stomach hurt the next day, but it could have been unrelated. It was probably just one of the indigents sitting funny in her stomach. It was not because she decided to do something new. She went out Saturday for drinks and decided to try a drink she had not tried before. It was really, tasty and she could not believe she had never tried it before. Her head hurt the next day. It was probably just because the alcohol content had been higher than what she normally had. She would just have to drink one less if she got it again next time. No big deal.

With each new decision she made, she started to feel more alive. If she had eggs for breakfast one morning, she could just have pancakes the next day. It was fine. It was fine.

What was not fine, was her soul crushingly boring job. She should find a new job, she thought to herself one morning. It was time. She was cured from indecisiveness. So, she started looking for something new. Something more exciting. And she found something. Something new, something different. She applied, and they called her in to do an interview. She was going to do it. She was going to change her life and do something new. The pay would be a little less, but it would not make much of a difference. It would be worth it.

Today was the day. She woke up early enough to give herself plenty of time to eat breakfast and get ready. She ate some oatmeal, showered, brushed her teeth, put on her makeup, all that was left was to pick out the perfect interview attire.

She grabbed her plain blue dress, with the bow that ties in the back, and her plain red dress with the slightly puffed up sleeves. If she wore the blue dress, she could pair it with her black quarter length sleeved blazer. The neckline on the blue one was a little high, so she would not be able to pair it with any of her necklaces. If she wore the red dress, she would not have to layer it with any other clothing item, and she could pair it with her pearl necklace which always looked classy. But would she look too over dressed for the job she was interviewing for? Would she look too underdressed for an interview? Was red even an appropriate color to wear to an interview? What if she wore the red one, and she came off aggressive or too assertive?

She had read that blue was a great color to wear to an interview. However, the shade of her blue dress could possibly be mistaken for purple. Would they think her unprofessional if they mistook her dress for purple?

Perhaps she should just put them both up and pick out something completely different. She could wear slacks instead. Maybe paired with a plain white shirt and her blazer. Would that be too boring though? She did not want to be forgettable. She also did not want to be too flashy. Besides, if she wore anything white, there was a very real chance of her getting some sort of stain on it. How embarrassing would it be if she had to sign something, and got ink on her white shirt? No, she would not wear white. The blue dress. She would wear the blue dress. She got it back out of her closet. Blue is a safe color, everyone likes blue. It was decided, finally.

But then a thought occurred to her. What if she gets this job…and then she hates it? She would be giving up a perfectly fine job, with a perfectly fine wage, for a job with slightly lower pay, and she might not even like it. What then? She would have to try to find another job. But wouldn’t that look bad on her resume if she only worked at her new job for a few months or so before she started applying for others? What if she could not find something else that suits her? What if no one else would even want to hire her? She started sweating. Was she making a mistake? Was her life and her routine really all that bad?

She sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands. She breathed in and out slowly to calm herself. She looked at the time. It was two minutes until she was supposed to be at her interview. She would never make it in time, and there was no way she was going to show up to an interview late. She would just have to email them to thank them for their consideration, apologize, and tell them that she had decided to go in a different direction. Or really, the same direction. But she would not tell them that part.

“Perhaps it is easier this way,” she decided.