Monday, February 11, 2008

Automotive disarray and personal fraud

So it was a helluva weekend.

I'm home now, after dealing with mechanical hell. I love my car. It's been extraordinarily good to me - never crapped out when I was unemployed, never really causing me any unexpected trips to the mechanic - until now. So I think it's worth it to invest a bit of cash into the old girl. And yes, I've decided she's a girl, named Craig.

See, we don't know what's wrong with her. She won't act up around the people who can fix her. She's just putting up a brave front and not telling anyone what's wrong. It's as if she looks at the guys and says "I'm FINE!" when they try to diagnose the problem. So it'll have to get worse before it gets better, but for the moment, anyway, I'm still driving.

It felt very good to walk into my apartment tonight. I really do love my home, and I miss it when I'm not here.

I was talking to a friend tonight who is having some relationship troubles. She wanted to talk to me because she says I am deep, philosophical, a good listener ... and as she's saying these things, I felt like an incredible fraud. I'm thinking to myself, maybe she just hasn't figured it out. Maybe I've made the right impression and it stuck.

I have that same feeling at work, sometimes. I'll get a challenging assignment and I'll be excited about it, until I really think about it and start to wonder if I'm good enough. Maybe, just maybe, I've pulled the wool over everyone's eyes, but soon they'll discover I'm just a fraud.

I hope that's not true. I hope I am authentically good at being a friend, and good at my job. And I also hope that, some day, I won't feel like such a fraud, and I'll believe all the nice things people have to say.

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