Car Wash

I'm at lunch and I'm at the carwash. I should take time to write when I'm not at the carwash, but I don't. Why?

I'm feeling that uneasiness again, the uneasiness I used to feel when I worked at the temp agency. There's this part of me that's screaming, "I want to do what I want to do!" A new job smothered the voice for a while, but it's been almost a year and now it's back. I want to do what I want to do.

I want to be at the beach right now, or outside at a coffee shop, writing. I want to be at the Huntington Library, in the rose garden, wearing big floppy hat and feeling the sun on my shoulders.

I do not want to be at a carwash, dressed for work and hoping the carwash guys take a little longer with my car so I don't have to go back to the office.

I'm only 29, but I feel old. "Life is too short" means more to me than it did before. 29 years is too much time wasted not doing what you want to do. This is especially true to me right now, sitting at the carwash. I don't want to waste another minute, another second, living a life that isn't what I want it to be. I want to do what I want to do.

If this were a novel or a movie, now is where I'd get up and walk to my car. Now is when I'd take the keys from the carwash guy, even though he's still wiping down the windows. Now is when I'd drive off to the airport and catch the next plane to Paris, with no luggage, nothing at all except this notebook and this pen. I'd leave a message on my boss's answering machine -- Thanks for everything, but it was killing me -- and when I got to Paris I'd write a postcard to my boyfriend, Mon cheri, It wasn't you, it was me. Really.