How long have I been here? I’ve heard that time moves faster as you age, but it doesn’t feel quite like that. Or at least not for me. Instead it feels like my brain can no longer process one day as something separate from the next. That’s why it feels like I’ve only just arrived here, when in reality, I’ve been here for two years.
I wish that I could say that everything turned around after Clara’s painting was hung up on my wall. How poetic it would be, that even though we weren’t destined to be together, simply viewing the kindness she’d shown me could inspire me to create the life I never could when A had been in “charge.”
It was unrealistic to think that a life could be solved with a simple gesture. If I could have survived on hope alone, I would probably still be there. However, I found the need to replace my hopes of a life with Clara with mundane tasks that in summation ended up keeping me alive. I went back to my job, and begged for leniency. I told some lie about a mental lapse that I had sought help for. They were reluctant, but my track record before all of this was enough for them to give me another chance.
As I swore my allegiance to a corporation that I felt nothing for, I knew that this job couldn’t be a permanent solution. I still had no idea what it was that I wanted, but it certainly wasn’t this.
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When a position was opened up based somewhere far away, I was the first to put my name in for it. They wanted someone with experience and no one else willing to transfer came close to my years of monotony. It helped with moving costs, and six months later I quit. The bridge was burned, but I don’t lose sleep over it. I’m sure that they’ll find some bright-eyed replacement in no time.
I like it here. It’s warmer for more of the year. The streets are wider, the scenery greener, and the people less concentrated. There is a train into the city. One that I haven’t used since my last commute. But there is nothing magical out in the hills here. Nothing special in the water. If pressed for why I stayed, the best I could do is say that there hasn’t been anything to make me want to leave.
That being said, I can’t really answer if things are better now under my management. All I can say is that I’m getting better at avoiding such comparisons. Maybe that’s the only way to truly move on. Or perhaps it’s simply to act without asking such broad questions with no clear answers.
At least I’m happy. I started to paint again. It’s nothing special, nothing even particularly good, but that doesn’t bother me. It never did. My desk is right beneath Clara’s painting. It could be that the paint has faded slightly, but it appears brighter here.
There is plenty I don’t have, but nothing comes to mind at this moment. Well, perhaps one small wrinkle. But one so insignificant, it hardly deserves mentioning. It’s infrequent, only when there is so an absence of sound can I hear it. A tiny noise that almost sounds like… pleading.