Oh, you are turbulent, life of mine. I am OHM: One Hot Mess. I can't handle it all right now, I'm afraid I'm reaching my upper limit. Between my personal and professional life, I'm reaching the breaking point. Let's explain:
In the past two weeks, I have juggled not one, but four, jobs. I've continued to freelance for the boîte I worked for this summer. I'm now working on the editorial projects for one of their clients for two months one to two days a week. I'm enjoying it, really.
Ok, this is all good and fine.
Then I had an offer to do the editorial and communications for a start-up accelerator here. I agreed to do this part time on the days I was not doing said freelance editorial for other agency.
Ok, good and fine. I got this.
This was promptly followed the same week by an intense, three hour, in your face, go go go go go interview with an amazing (get this) ROBOTICS company that needs an American native speaker to do all their English language dialog. They want me NOW. NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. I'm translating their dialogs using my freelance status and they're working on my full time contract with a visa (cross your fingers).
But this is France and I don't trust anything till contracts are signed. Willy rascals.
Let's get back to this boîte for whom I've been doing freelance editorial. You know, the one I've been trying to get to HIRE ME for EIGHTEEN MONTHS. Their business development manager called me in a panic a week and a half ago to ask if I could come into the agency for two days to write a corporate brochure for the same client for whom I'm writing website content. I went in for two days straight to work on said brochure.
Ok, ok, I got this, it's all good... HOLY PUMPERNICKEL ON A BALEINE WHALE WHY HAVEN'T YOU HIRED ME ALREADY!?
So, I'm cozy by myself working in house at this company when low and behold, the head of HR comes and introduces herself for me to the first time. She proceeds to ask to speak with me about a major major major blogging project for a massive French telecommunications company that wants an English speaker to write in English for six months full time...and they want to present my profile. But the blog gig is cool. SOOOO cool. So cool it could involve travel to *drumroll please* things like the Cannes film festival. HOLY MOTHER OF CHICKEN CLUCKING ROOSTERS IN A CANDY CANE FOREST! give it to me NOW! Give it to me yesterday! PRESENT MY PROFILE AND I GUARANTEE you you crazy mo-fos, I WILL WIN THIS contract for you and I WILL ROCK THE CRAP out of it!
This job could also finally MEAN FINAL FULL TIME STATUS. OH MY BUCKWHEAT BARBECUED CHICKEN WAFFLE PANCAKES!
HIRE ME PLEASE!
I proceeded to get entirely overwhelmed and very stressed because the universe just seems to keep piling things on. I decided to turn down startup accelerator.
(Let's not forget to mention that in the meanwhile I'm spending about 20 hours a week translating robot dialogs AND a huge four volume series of comic books for a company in LA that is happy with my work...)
SOMEBODY SAVE ME. NOW.
And that, my friends, is just the professional portion of this little hot mess of a life over here. The universe is also MAJORLY SCREWING with my heart strings.
I mentioned about a week and a half ago the in the post "Oh, the irony" that This One's friend was clearly interested. Yep. No doubt now. Clearly. After two weeks of pursuing me, he finally asked me to hang and get a drink Friday night. So I said yes. We had planned to meet up around 10pm after his martial arts class.
BUT WAIT FOR IT. WAIT FOR IT. GET THIS.
Guess who called out of the EFFING blue to say he was in town and wanted to give me a book he'd bought for me and a *drumroll please* bottle of wine he'd picked out for me?
YEAH. YOU GOT IT. THAT'S RIGHT. THE MOTHER EFFING WINE BARON. OF ALL PEOPLE! OF ALL PEOPLE!
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING UNIVERSE?
Composure, composure. You got this Lindsay, you got this, keep your cool.
Naturally, far too nice and far too hard to anger and not one to stay angry (oh, why can't I be someone who just stays ANGRY!?) I said yes to seeing him. I told him I had plans so I couldn't chat for long, but I honestly had a good time seeing him. With my guard up. WAY WAY WAY UP.
I don't know what he wanted, but if it was a hookup, he didn't get it. Not even a kiss. He got a bise. But I can't say that I didn't enjoy seeing him. I did. It's a lot more complicated than that, really. Honestly. BUT WHAT THE HELL IS IT WITH HIM COMING AND GOING AND COMING AND GOING? WTF!!!
Then I was off to see This One's friend, whom I'll call Ambroise. Ambroise is a lovely gentleman. We have a lot in common. A lot of complicity. I had fun. I met his friends. We had great wine. He took me back to this place for more wine and wooing me with guitar. And you know, French smoothness. As in going in for the kiss. I kept it classy. I'm a classy lady. But he has clearly NO IDEA This One and I ever dated. EVER.
Ambroise proceeds to tell me things about This One that I have never known. About how This One moved back to France for his Swedish GF, who proceeded to dump him. And break his heart. And how Ambroise didn't know why This One had been single for so long. How he didn't even approach women when they were out together.
Naturally, again, I had only a handful of assumptions:
1) Oh gawd. You're gay and don't know it!
2) Oh sh*t. YOU JERKFACE. I was just a fling and you used me and were ashamed about it and so you never told your friends. crap crap crap crap crap.
3) Oh poor guy. you had your heart ripped out of your chest and can't get over it. I feel so bad for you. No wonder you've been keeping me at arm's length with iron walls around your stone cold heart.
4) I AM ABSOLUTELY LIVID YOU DIDN"T TELL YOUR FRIENDS LET ALONE THIS FRIEND BECAUSE NOW I AM IN A TERRIBLY AWKARD POSITION OF HAVING TO EITHER TELL THAT FRIEND OR YOU HAVING TO DO IT AFTER SAID FRIEND SAYS TO YOU HE'S SEEN ME AND KISSED ME AND IS POSSIBLY EXCITED ABOUT IT.
So I did what I had to do. Mostly for me and my conscience screaming at me about how this did not feel right at all.
Oh my I SO DO NOT THIS! THIS IS NOT OK, MY LIFE IS LIKE THE VOLCANO EXPLOSION AT POMPEII SPEWING DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERRRRRRE.
I texted This One saying I needed to talk to him. He asked if something was wrong. I was brutally, unbearably, terribly vulnerably honest. I said I didn't feel comfortable with his friend not knowing we had dated.
This One gave me the go ahead to tell him and that if I wanted to date him I had a green light.
Ok. I swallowed even harder and summed up a lot of *ahem* cahones I didn't know I had and said this:
¨Honestly, he's not the one I want...can you please just tell me right now if I should give up on you entirely?¨
To which he responded essentially yes: we'd had our time and place.
Band-aids hurt to rip off, but if you do it quick, it's over fast. It hurt. It sucked. My ego hurts a little bit. I'm definitely down about it. But at least I have an answer. And at least I don't feel like I'm going to cause a whole lot of mayhem between two really good friends.
I just don't know what to feel about anything or anyone right now; I can barely handle my own life. I don't know what will happen at all between jobs and men and quite frankly, I don't know whether to scream and rip my hair out or crawl into a corner and bawl my eyes out.
I don't know if I've ever lived anything this intense before. And this has just been the past two weeks. I'm run absolutely ragged and exhausted. I'm so busy I can barely sleep enough right now. Can it all just settled down, please universe?
(Did I mention that AMBROISE works for the crazy company with the blog deal and that if I got the blog deal I'd be working in the same office as him? OH LORD.)
I'm so stressed and so high strung and so worked up right now I can't decide whether to punch something or coil into the fetal position. I kinda wanna do both.
I am OHM: One Hot Mess.
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