There’s so much about this I don’t understand. Every time I open a new doorway, a million more appear for me to explore. It’s a labyrinth, and I’m beginning to think it will stretch on forever, if there is such a thing. It’s a dark, long road to either doom or hope; I still don’t know yet. I’ll face that door when I come to it. God, all I can do is speak riddles today.

I feel so wrong, standing there in my blue uniform with my pressed pants and hair pulled back. That person isn’t me. People always ask me how old I am. Even when I say 19, they still ask if I have children. It makes me laugh every time. And finally, the other day, I snapped a little, and said rudely, “I’m 19, of course I don’t have children.” All of the women are around 24-26 mostly married, and nearly all of them have 6 year olds at home. I can only look at them with amazement. Why? How could you? You are barely even done being a child yourself!

Imagine, this one girl I see frequently, had her first kid when she was twenty. One year from now, me, having a kid. The thought sends me into an absolute panic. The responsibility…. I almost can’t care for myself (let’s not even get into that…), let alone some infant that would be completely dependent on me. It’s just two very opposite lives, two extreme ways of thinking. Me, with my solitary, self-centered existence, and them working at a fast food restaurant to keep their kids clothed. It’s so fucked. I can’t understand them, that mentality. I simply cannot ever see that mindset applying to me. Everything that these people are is all that I am not. 

Another one of the girls at work is trying to befriend me, even suggesting we carpool (oh, the horror). I feel like this monster. I look over at her and find myself aggravated. We discovered we both moved to the area three years ago (and we lived near one another before too, apparently, which she thought was the greatest thing). Turns out we live a street away from one another currently, in the same subdivision. In fact, I think I figured out which house is hers. She was going on and on about things, and I could only swallow and grind my teeth as she went on to tell me how she hated where she used to live, how it was a terrible area and so on and so forth. My home. My beautiful home, was all I could think. Don’t you dare speak against it.

She inadvertently turned me against her with that insignificant conversation. That, and one of the first things she said to me in the morning was that she likes working in the front so that she can watch all of the hot men (she said this as she craned her neck around all the cooking equipment and giggled, pointing out some poor, unsuspecting individual who was prowling around the booths in the corner). That’s just not something you say to a person that you have met all of once. I don’t want to know. I don’t care. Girl talk is not something I can relate to or understand. Quite frankly, I find it fucking stupid, but you know, we all have our dislikes….   

I shouldn’t talk so badly of it. The people are extremely friendly. They always try to help you out. You have a tray in your arms, someone is usually ahead of you to open the oven, or take it from you. Today, my schedule got thrown out for some reason before I got to it. One of the guys dug through a pile of garbage and got it out for me. It was covered in grease and all manner of nasty things. I didn’t even ask him to. Shit like that makes me take a step back, as ridiculous as it sounds. Even the smallest kindness is not something I am used to getting from others.

I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve struggled while taking my mother somewhere, trying to get her wheelchair to some impossible place, with people walking around me not even giving me a second glance. I don’t even expect people to open a door for me. My whole perspective of humanity is usually down in the negatives, but at work, it’s either everybody helps everybody or we all fall behind. It’s different when there’s a paycheck involved, at least in this particular workplace. I’m grateful for that, because I know I could easily have been shoved into a situation with a bunch of assholes who weren’t willing to help me learn the ropes. Everyone has made an effort to teach the newcomers. In all honesty, I don’t think I could have had it much better. I may not have anything in common with anyone, and I may not have any inclination to befriend them or any of that, but I’m more than willing to be cordial with them, which is more than I can say for the majority of people I come across.

On a side note, I got payed. My first ever paycheck. I couldn’t be disappointed by my reaction; I saw it coming the first day of work. Not even the slightest sense of accomplishment, nothing but stony, cold silence in my head, no flip of my stomach or surge of excitement. I looked down at a check and just sighed. I don’t know where this is leading, but I guess the best thing I can do is not stop to think about it so much. It’s only money. It’s only life.