during the pandemic, i ordered a smoothie from a little cafe in LA. i picked it up from the makeshift counter set up outside the door, and when i got in the car, i saw there was a small note taped to the top of the cup. it read: “someday, this will all be a memory”.
i knew whoever had written that note was thinking about the state of the world and could have had no way of knowing about my comparatively small struggle in it, but this little kindness gave me a moment of hope, a window into the future when the pain of this time would surely have faded a little.
i only wondered and worried about how long it was going to take. “someday” doesn’t like to tell you when it plans to arrive.
for those who read Why I Did What I Did and got the impression that i hated my job so much that i had to leave and let go: i loved my job, i did.
i loved teaching, loved grading essays with my red pen, loved doing research, more than life. i was born (and designed) to do it.
loved my students to death. loved cutting classes (my own) for ice cream and pizza, movies at the mall, shopping, driving them downtown to get the newest iphone… (sound like a bad teacher here).
i know some of you are here, read things you shouldn’t. but please know that i do
love you nadiyya (learned so much about patience and acceptance from you my dearest, thank you), ayas (let’s gossip tonight, yes?), amanda (had to let you go for your own good), monica (rip. thinking of you everyday my sweets), min (saw you won that award, it was on the news, proud of you! missed our late night sessions editing manuscripts), mattie (be careful with those racy pics!), morena (you’re way prettier and smarter that you’d like to think), gif (your tenderness inspired me), ols (driving at four a. m. with you on the phone to keep me awake, yes i remember), bimo (didn’t know you that well but would let you sleep in my class anytime, george orwell, boringg right?), nico (sorry for not having that dinner, wish i said okay let’s go do that), susie and thia (sorry for being MIA, it’s not you it’s me), class 2011 my fave (sorry 2012 2013! and the rest 🤷🏻♀️ kidding!) proud of you venon, shelly, amelia (both), everybody who thought they wouldn’t get through the years, you did it!
i cannot stress this enough: i loved my job and almost everything about it.
what i didn’t love and drove me to the particularly tough decision: the office politics, the pettiness and arrogance of the whole institution, abuse to students and human rights in general, daily sexual harassment, toxic work environment that killed my soul.
bit by bit everyday i was made less human, i was made petty too. i got stabbed in the back so many times i started stabbing back, and oh boy did i learn from the best. it turned me evil, a monster, which i wasn’t, not really.
so i left. sorry i failed you lovelies. some of you cried when i didn’t even look back, not so much as a glance.
there have been things said about me and i’m leaving them behind.
you wanted me to be everything but i couldn’t be everything.
Words have weight, something once said cannot be unsaid. Meaning is like a stone dropped into a pool; the ripples will spread and you cannot know what back they wash against.
the material aspect in life, the physicality of it all, is a nausea. it turns my insides into a mulch, mushy and sticky, like glue but porridge-like. sometimes even, vomit-like.
i want density, an intensity that is much much less. i want lightness, without the weight of it all. i want to float like a feather into the abyss, leaving no one nothing but
a memory, about how eloquent i’ve been with life and all that comes within.
What happened was this: Cathy and I walked to the edge of the reservoir’s water and from her purse she removed a Ziploc baggie containing two filmy-tailed, rather stupid-looking goldfish that Pup-Tent had bought for her the week before in an isolated moment of kindness. We sat down on the smooth rocks next to the spotless, clean, infinitely dark and deep lake water. She said to me, “You only get one chance to fall in love for the first time, don’t you.” And I said, “Well, at least you got the chance. A lot of people are still waiting.”
She then poked into the glassy still water, made small ripples, and threw a stone or two. Then she took the baggie, placed it under the water and punctured the membrane with her sharp black fingernails. “Bye-bye, fishies,” she said as the two languidly wriggled away down into the depths. “Make sure you two stay together. You’re the only chance that either of you is ever going to get.”
how many times I said yes how many times I said yes and yes and yes because it was what you wanted to hear and what I wanted you to hear and what I wanted to want and every time the walls stayed above my head instead of falling down upon me upon us because if it was going to stop then it would have to be me who said no the walls were not going to help and I didn’t say no I didn’t I never did it was never your fault never yours never mine only the walls that didn’t tumble when they should have when they should have known they should have been able to tell when was the right time to fall
maia diaries 