Dear Mr. Stafford,

I am reaching out to you in regards to the part-time receptionist position that you have advertised on your company site. I felt drawn to this position because of my past experiences as a receptionist, and I believe my skills and strengths would be an excellent fit for your company’s needs. If chosen for this position, I would work hard, and I would give everything 110%. I am someone who believes in the value of hard work, as well as personal sacrifice in pursuit of a job well done. I have learned through my past experiences to work well on my own and with a team. Working in a team is something I enjoy doing all the time. Teamwork is very important to me. I would be nothing without teamwork. It’s almost a problem.

I really am very team oriented, Mr. Stafford. I care very much about how my team perceives me. I try not to think about what my team thinks when they hear my name. I love working in a team because for some reason, every fleshy, boney, bloody bit of my body lives to please people. There is a very terrified corner of my mind that wails in agony at the notion that someone may not like me. Being a people pleaser is exhilarating because you never know who you truly are in any given situation. I am everything to everyone. I am just an organ aimlessly sending signals through grey matter, a sponge of chemicals telling nerves to tell muscles to move in a soup of red liquid oxygen. I am a brain trying to talk to other brains, using sounds that represent the way I perceive the world, through my eyes, through the petri dish of memories. Although there are not enough words to fully communicate how the smell of ash in beer somehow fills me with both fondness and sadness, I desperately try to convey through these sounds that represent things how I experience my life, despite the fact that I will always be alone in how I react to every moment I endure. I am the only one who has experienced my whole life.

I’ve been trying to please people since elementary school. I tried to please them even when they were mean to me. I wasn’t me when I tried to please them. I was who they wanted me to be, or who I hoped they wanted me to be, but honestly, I could have been anything and they still would not have been satisfied. In elementary school I thought I knew who I was, but really, I didn’t, and I still don’t. I was not me yet because me was still an idea, a pupa in a glass jar that I stared at day and night, waiting for something to happen, something to click, something to spark and finally, finally my wings would spread and I would fly. 

As an employee, I am very flexible. I can bend my foot to the edge of my bed and slowly creep to the carpeted floor. I can undulate across a room soundlessly and expertly avoid the spots that creak. I can nudge my bedroom door open and listen as my sister cries in her bedroom, down the hall. I am skilled in wondering what secret world she keeps from me, the secret world of someone who has lived the same life as me but has somehow become her own completely different, individual soul. How did she become this person that watches the best shows and listens to the best music, that excels at everything I can’t, that effortlessly makes my dad laugh. How did she become this person that is genuinely herself yet cries in secret. I will never know how to make my sister see herself through my eyes, but with my extensive experience in making lasting relationships with regular customers, I crawl down the hall and into her room, and I try to glimpse into her universe.

The job description for this position mentioned “a reliable source of transportation,” and I would like to confirm that I do, in fact, have a means of transportation. I have a car now. I used to love riding the bus. I don’t anymore, but I look back fondly on the person I was when I loved it. When I used to sit on the bus, I would watch the people around me inhabit their own private solar systems. On their phones were hundreds of people I would never see or meet, and when they stepped off, their galaxy revolved around them like the rings of Saturn, gently overlapping and linking to nearby planetoids and nebulae. I like to think these rings protect our surface from invaders. Inside, we have layers and a core that only we know. People look at us through their telescopes and draw our phases, predict our storms, maybe even plan trips to our surface. But that is their version of us, Mr. Stafford. And it will be as accurate as a science project stapled together by an eighth grader the night before it’s due. Also, I am proficient in Excel.

If given this opportunity, I will be relieved, because I know I will have made someone happy enough to hire me. References on request. 

Sincerely,

Rachel

*

Hello Mr. Stafford,

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! That went by fast, right? Ha ha!

I have some unfortunate news for you. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, and I will do everything I can to make up for this, and I hope this won’t trouble you too much, and I really wish there was another option, because I don’t ever want to cause you any stress, or make you think less of me in any way.

It started last night. I started thinking about elementary school again. I was remembering the first time I started truly watching a clock, when the class, whatever class it was, lost all hope of keeping my attention. It was a snowballing train of thought that started with, In one episode of Sailor Moon, there will be an hour left of class. I knew an episode of Sailor Moon lasted a half hour, and if I could just picture it clearly in my mind, the minute hand would move fast, and I would only have to endure sixty more minutes of class. 

Have you ever experienced a lifetime within a second? A very slow, boring lifetime. A lifetime as a professional button counter, in a button factory, on button island. I pictured that episode of Sailor Moon, and that somehow only took three minutes. On that day, time was working against me. Each second dripped down my neck in a tortuously slow crawl.

Have you heard of infantile amnesia, Mr. Stafford? Around the age of two or three, we forget everything we experienced up until that point in order to truly develop ourselves in a cognitive way. And then it gets really wild when you realize that the way we experience time is relative to the amount of time we have been alive. A one-year-old, who has only experienced one complete year, may experience days as if they were months passing by. But as we age, we experience time quicker, and can live through an entire day and experience its passage as if it was only a few short hours. 

It seems I had a temporary recovery of my mind before childhood amnesia that day in elementary school. Every minute passed like a year, every second like an hour, every moment a decade. And what is time anyway? Does it function the way it should? We’ve had generations to perfect it, but we still need funny tricks like daylight savings, and leap years, and time zones, to keep the illusion alive. Sometimes I blink, and a week goes by. Sometimes I lie in bed, and stare at the ceiling, and 1:00 AM lasts three days. Sometimes something terrible happens and time no longer exists. This is bad if you are trying to get up early or if you have to catch a bus.

Sometimes I try to manage my time and make every minute as productive and well-spent as possible. But then I close my eyes and suddenly the day is over. Sometimes the consuming dread of what time will put me through tomorrow, or in a week, or in a year makes me feel like I am falling through the air, speeding towards a terrible introduction to the ground. Mr. Stafford, sometimes I am a visitor in the body I inhabit. I look ahead, and the future is a sea. 

With this in mind, I regret to inform you that I will be about 10 minutes late for my shift today. 

Sorry about that.

- Rachel

*

Happy Birthday Mr. Stafford!

I’m not the best at writing these, ha ha! Anyway, I hope you have a great birthday! You’re one cool boss!

Best,

Rachel

P.S. 

You remind me of my father, Mr. Stafford. Not in how you look or act, just as someone dominant that I’m scared of. I want to make you proud of me. I want you to laugh at my jokes, or laugh with me, or laugh at me. I want you to laugh. I want to know when you’re sad and what I can do to help you.

Sometimes we are missing pieces inside of us, Mr. Stafford, and we look for those pieces in the world around us. Sometimes in people, but mostly in chemicals or mild poisons or in purchasing material from fancy places or swapping fluid with strangers or in putting shapes together that represent things and sharing those things to even more strangers. We look for missing pieces in our birthdays, wouldn’t you say? Wouldn’t you say you woke up today pretending that somehow these passing hours would be different, because it is a day to celebrate you and whatever you mean to the people around you. It is a day to see and be seen, to pretend that you are whole, and more you than you have ever been.

That being said, no person can fill that jigsaw hole within you. No one can complete you. Birthdays can’t complete you. Someone’s love can’t complete you. A priest can’t complete you. A Father can’t complete you. A cashier can’t complete you. A celebrity can’t complete you. You had me at hello, You complete me. What movie was that from again? Lizzie Maguire? Fuck that. You are the only person that can complete you, because you were never missing anything to begin with. You have everything you need, you just need to learn to love yourself. It can take a lifetime to finally realize that you are enough. Therapy may speed up this process (but it’ll be you doing the heavy lifting in the end, because therapists can’t complete you).

What do you think about therapy, Mr. Stafford? There was a time where I was lucky enough to be offered free therapy. I won’t get into it here, I don’t think the whole story will fit on this birthday card. But anyway, I could register and receive free therapy. The therapist taught me about apologies. Genuine apologies, not fluff padding to soften a blow, or careless parmesan cheese sprinkled on a plate of bullshit. Isn’t it funny that we think a true apology is this rare thing that only really happens on Jerry Springer? An apology is not a performance. It is a mirror, and you are naked in front of it. Nothing is hidden and you are alone with yourself.

I was alone, but I am ok with that now. I think we are all alone at the end of the day, Mr. Stafford. But if you love yourself, it doesn’t have to be that bad.

P.P.S 

I think the movie was Jerry Maguire. 

*

Hello Mr. Stafford,

I’m sorry to do this. But this is my two weeks notice. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

I’ve been trying not to apologise as much, and I’m trying to put myself first, and I’ve been trying to become stronger, and I don’t think I can do any of that while working for you. 

Apologies are weird creatures. Does anyone grow up liking them? I have a vague memory of having one chubby arm gripped in my mother’s strong hand, as she forced me to face my sister and the toothy bruises decorating her neck. It used to feel like giving in, submitting, and bending in a strange new direction against your will. And then there’s the other side of the coin, when those girls in elementary school started calling me names, and it got so bad it reached the teachers. They said sorry then, but even at ten I knew when something did not reach the eyes. And I didn’t want to forgive them. I wanted to hate them. But somehow in that moment I could feel my mother’s grip twisting my arm, forcing me to do as I was told.

Apologies feel more like prayers now. Something to say faithfully, religiously, to bless every conversation with in hope of salvation. I just want people to know I try my hardest every time, and I feel every mistake I make like a hot brand on my skin, and I want to be good, and I want them to like me. And this time, Mr. Stafford, I truly am sorry, because to be honest, I’m not really sorry at all, and I’m sorry for that too. I’ve decided not to think about how hard it will be for you to find a replacement, or what you will think of me after I’m gone. I hope you don’t mind me saying that I’ve decided I don’t need you to like me as a person at all. But if it helps, I will tell you why.

There was a time where I was lucky enough to be offered free therapy. 

I had a job much like this one, where I was unhappy, but I stayed anyway because I didn’t want to leave knowing the people I worked with would hate me for it.

I remember the day after it happened, I called work crying. I had to speak to two supervisors to try to get the day off.

I remember before it happened, I was tired, and miserable, and the only thought in my mind was that my free time would be spent trying to prepare my body for the next eight hours.

I remember after it happened, I didn’t ride a bus again for a month, and only started to again because my father could not drive me anymore.

I remember the before and after, but not much of the moment.

I won’t tell you about the moment, because it doesn’t matter how or what. I will only say that I was frozen, and I experienced that slowest, most agonizing eternity in barely under a minute. Time is funny like that, isn’t it? The way it flies by while you’re happy, and grinds to a halt in moments that are so miserable that they physically hurt you There must have been a black hole directly above me that day, bending space and time, because there were no longer laws that could measure that moment. 

What compels someone to enter your universe, Mr. Stafford? Your universe, the space that orbits around you, full of familiar things. What could the thought process be, when someone decides to ignore all that life around you and put their dirty fucking hand in your goddamn space. 

This is my fucking space. My stars and my rings and my nebulas, my surface, my lakes and valleys, my moon. MINE. 

I’d like to break that fucking hand, Mr. Stafford. I’d like to pull out each fingernail and peel back the skin. I’d like to grind those bloody digits into the pavement, and slap whatever meat is left on a cutting board and mince it into cat food. The hand that dared to claim, dared to exist in my atmosphere. I’d like to slowly de-bone that hand, Mr. Stafford, with a dull steak knife. I’d like to find that hand and corner it. I’d like to make it feel scared, and trapped. I would like to make time freeze for that hand. 

Can an apology fix that? 

Mr. Stafford, I would like to propose that maybe apologies shouldn’t be used for approval, and that forgiveness shouldn’t be a forced gratuity on your bill. I’m implying that maybe I shouldn't say sorry for quitting, and I shouldn’t have given those girls in school the public forgiveness they didn’t deserve. 

I got a phone call yesterday, one year after it happened. A very nice lady asked me how I was doing, and if I had a moment to chat with her. She wanted to know if I would like a letter. An “apology letter.” From the fuck who assaulted me on the bus.

Some apologies can be sincere. When you mean it, your eyes ache from the tears and lack of sleep, and there is a fist in your chest holding back a tidal wave. I really do believe people can change. But I don’t owe anyone forgiveness. No matter how hard they beg. No matter how much they’ve done to make it right. I don’t have to forgive them. 

I don’t think that means his apology is worth any less. Whatever effort he has put into changing, or learning his lesson, finding Jesus, whatever the fuck he did, is still worth something, just not to me. To truly accept the consequences of your mistakes, you must accept that you are not owed forgiveness. The only forgiveness that is guaranteed is your own.

I told the nice lady that I didn’t want this apology, because I didn’t need it. I was whole again, healed, and there was nothing left for sad words to fix. It was a selfish decision that I made happily, in a red satin gown with a glass of spritzing champagne in hand. I lounged before a crackling fire on a shag rug, with a box of chocolates within reach and two tigers snoring by my side. I lifted up the phone and said, “No, I am not interested in the letter, thank you.” And then I hung up the phone and sipped my champagne and thought, I will never regret that.

Some of that was true, and most of it was just a feeling. And that feeling is love. I love who I have become, despite everything, because of everything. We are just brains, Mr. Stafford. We can only control the squishy meat suits we are attached to. I chose not to accept this apology to make this person happy. Two weeks from now I will not be thinking of how I can make you happy either. I will be thinking of everything ahead of me, and how there is no one else I’d rather share that with than myself.

Sincerely,

Rachel