mmmmlx

Suck My Smug

If you think of
me at all (a
loaded question,
surely), do you
think me cocky?
Do you assume
or believe that
I am a generally
smug individual?
Even though I’ve had
a solid set of recent
years that have
humbled me like
no other, this is
something I’m

worried about
this cool and
early morning
before going to
work at the first
job I’ve had in
over fourteen
months, fourteen
months in which I
have had more job
interviews (times
four?  maybe more!)
than I’ve had during

any fourteen month 

period of my life, during
which I have also faced 

the most significant
health struggle,
a surgery to
remove cancer
that essentially
kept me down
for no less than
three of those
months.  And
this lovely little
parcel of employ
ment will have
lasted, by the
time I finish
my contract
a week from
today, a total
of seven full
days.  But this 

question of 

smugness keeps
creeping up on me,
has me worried,
keeps drifting into
my consciousness.
Beneath the other

thoughts sunk into
the mire, like the
worrisome threats
of living under the
never-very-subtle-
anymore movements
toward living in an

autocracy. Plus it
keeps coming to my
attention that despite 

steadfast attempts at being
transparent, always an 

earnest and primal goal of mine,
it never seems to work.  As I read it,

I am seen in aggregate

to be overwhelmingly 

misunderstood.

Am I, in general, a
cocky, condescending
misunderstood human 

being?  What others 

think they understand

about you or me can
often differ wildly with
how we think of our
selves, sure.  But
just the notion that
I might give the
impression that
I believe myself
to be better, at
some higher level,
than you, or than
anyone else, given
what have seemed
honest reactions to
my approach over
the years, by people
with whom I’ve spent
enough time that you’d 

hope they’d know a bit

of what’s real about me, gives 

me such pause, and has for

a while.  And now,

as I’m constantly 

attempting to claw my way 

out of a mire I have been 

sunk into for years toward
freedom, I work daily to

reconcile these things,

and to understand not

so much who I ever was,

but who I am,
existing as I do

with such intent,

so firmly in the 

present.  These
meanderings, to
me, seem of some
relevance, seem worthwhile
to mull over this morning, 

this cool morning, a couple 

of hours before I will head into

what is so rare for me of late:

a new day of paid labor.