Me in the Corner

I don't know if it's the extended daylight we've been enjoying lately, the morning workouts on the rooftop, the iron and B complex supplements I've been taking, or just finally starting to hit a bit of a stride here in NY, but I've felt more myself in recent weeks than I have since I moved here. I guess I like having a bit of a routine and for someone who works mostly from home, it can be a challenge to create that, but I think I'm getting there. I suppose the weekly gig at the coffee shop helps, though I'm not always sure it's the best place for me. The money isn't great — imagine that! — but it does provide some interesting fodder, and maybe that's worth more than a few dollars extra an hour I could find in another job?

Lately when I go in, I've been paying attention to the way people engage with me. Since I'm terribly self-conscious and always think everyone I meet either hates me or loathes me, and since I feel like a total fish out of water in impossibly trendy soho anyway, I'm always convinced every word uttered by a customer, from please to thank you, is a direct mocking of who I am as a person. Yesterday some guy even said to me after some idle chit-chat about hard-boiled eggs that he knew I was from the country. Having spent a total of about 5 nights of my entire life in the country, I really wasn't sure how to respond. His friend jumped in and said, "What if she's not? Maybe you just offended her." To which he replied, looking me in the eye, "Oh, I know she is." What the fuck! It's stuff like that that gets me all frazzled. Obviously this guy didn't know what he was talking about and was just talking to hear himself talk, but I couldn't help getting all wrapped up in this idea of me projecting the image that I'm Corn Cob Country Girl. Is it the way I talk? My attire? The way I pour the coffee? What? And why do I care so much what some random stranger in a coffee shop thinks after two minutes of talking to me?

"He was just trying to pick you up," Drew said after I told him the story.
"Really?" I asked, "Am I so naive I can't pick up on when someone's trying to pick me up? And when is calling someone a country girl a pick-up line?"

And was it a pick-up line when someone asked me how much I spent on my necklace? Who does that? Who walks up to strangers and asks how much they paid for things? It's so strange to me.

And then there are the Beautiful People, who aren't always necessarily beautiful, but either recognizably famous (yesterday I even waited on Michael Stipe), or insanely, other-wordly gorgeous I imagine their lives to be filled with glamorous photo shoots for magazine covers, globe-trotting vacations in Fiji and St. Barts, and weekly massages, which, in my mind, is the height of luxury. In a weekly 6-hour shift, I see at least 4 or 5 of these people and each time, they have the same effect on me: I feel simultaneously awestruck and utterly inferior. It's those times when I'm painfully aware of how bold the line is between them (the Beautiful People) and me. It's not that I want to be them per se, or even have their lives or looks or whatever, but I can't help feeling in those moments that all I am is a 31-year-old coffee shop girl. Even if that's just what I do 6 hours of the week.

So, of course, being the neurotic, over-thinker that I am, all this brings me to larger, more existential thoughts about what I'm doing with my life and how I define personal success and achievement and what my goals and ambitions are. Living in New York and rubbing shoulders with such successful people has definitely made me evaluate my own desires to "make it"...whatever that means. I know I want to do creative work I'm proud of, I know I want to support myself as a writer, I know at the end of my life, I'd like to be able to point to at least one thing I did that had an impact — made people cry or laugh or think or whatever. But I'm also evaluating my life outside all that and asking myself, "What if that doesn't happen? Where else am I going to find success and achievement and joy?"

Okay, wow, this post went off in an entirely different direction than I'd planned. But anyhow, I guess these are the things on my mind. Also on my mind? Dudes, I'm gonna see Paul Simon tomorrow night — something I've been dying to do for years and years now. I may not be one of the Beautiful People, life's pretty good just the same.

Comments

[East Coast Teacher]

When I lived in MN and IA, people were always saying they knew I didn't grow up around there. It wasn't due to any accent I did or didn't have. I actually had one guy say to me, "It's because you kept talking and didn't take a breath."

LOL

I know what you mean by feeling like you don't fit in and about over thinking. I do that all the time.

But, it does seem like life in NYC is pretty good for you...I'm glad.

[brookem]

Hi there from a fellow over-thinker.

Well I can tell you one thing, your wonderful blog here? Makes ME think all of the time, makes me smile and laugh, and so really, just by this alone, you're making an impact.

Also, I have a feeling, considering your strong drive and motivation to accomplish what you want out of life, you will be successful in whatever it is you land upon.

And Paul Simon?! I'm wicked jealous.

[Sarah]

Hey Wendy! I'm a new feed subscriber (Google Reader recommended you to me), and I guess I just wanted to say ... I know how you feel about where you're going in life. I'm chipping away at becoming a full-time photographer and some days it feels like I am the poster child for existential crisis. Sometimes it just helps to know that you're not alone.

And also, I think you're a great writer. So much of succeeding in creative fields is just not giving up, so do us all a favor and don't. :)

[Scarlett]

It's important to realize that success comes in different packages for everyone and well, you're getting there even if you can't see or smell it yet.

Paul Simon- I seriously could hate you but instead I'll be really excited for you! Lucky girl!

[Lori]

The first year or two that I lived in New York was overcome by the pretty people too. It was very intimidating, being 22 years old in my post-college wardrobe walking down the same streets as these impossibly beautiful men and women whose hair always seemed perfect - never windblown, like mine, in expensive shoes with expensive bags, etc. They all just looked so put together. It definitely gave me an inferiority complex! But then, I don't know what happened. I got a bit older, a bit more confident, probably a bit more jaded. I never stopped seeing the pretty people, but I stopped "noticing" them so much, if that makes sense. I felt more at home in the city like I had my life, and these were just cast members in the story of it.

[Natalee]

I hear you.

I'm one of the most outgoing people you'll ever meet, but I definitely have many, many moments of insecurity-especially in situations like the one you described.

Also, I think there must be something to having an existential crisis in your 30s, because I'm having one myself.

Hang in there, you're great.

[a.]

I thought I was pretty much over my r.e.m. thing, 15 years having gone by and all, but when I read that parenthetical, my dna went "eeeeeee! she waited on michael stipe!!!!!!!!" I even did a hand-flappy thing.

i've just added nothing to the discourse.

[arexa]

dudes,
it takes a long-ass time to feel comfortable somewhere new, especially when you sort of gave up your own life. it sounds like you are happy, and i am glad. i have been reading your blog for a year + and i think you are fantastic. keep on keepin' on...

[Courtney]

I'll bet you anything it's your accent - I have it, too. And for god's sake, I'm in Pittsburgh, and people are ALWAYS commenting on my accent, as though the pittsburgh/west virginia way of talking is French or something. Anyway, lovely post, as always - I have no doubt you will make it as a writer!

[Citywendy]

Nha, it's not my accent. If anyone ever comments on the way I speak, it's just to tell me how much I DON'T have an accent. I moved around way too much as a kid to acquire an accent.

Thanks, everyone, for the nice comments, btw.

[Melissa from the Inland Empire, soon to be the Desert]

Your words really resonate with me, particularly the bit about the divide between "the beautiful people" and the rest of us.

Every day at work, I watch people stroll past my desk; a lot of them are shabby, a lot more of them are put-together, as you said and as I think...and I feel complete rubbish in comparison. A total fraud.

[Alyce]

I never talked more about how much things cost than when I lived in NYC. Maybe because we all talked about how high the rent was that the rest of it was fair game?

I'm glad you're working at the cafe. Such great insights. I'm an over-thinker extraordinaire and am enjoying your take on things.