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sunshine jen: Sorting out the Out of Sorts
I apologize for being out of touch lately. I’ve been out of sorts---don’t worry, nothing tragic, art and work related stuff.
In my out-of-sortedness, I found myself in the wrong and apologizing to someone. I couldn’t apologize once. I found myself apologizing multiple times---first to her voicemail, then to her email, then to her assistant. As I finished my chorus of sixteen sorrys, I wondered if I was taking my apologizing to the extreme. Why was I apologizing so much? Yes, I made a mistake, but it’s not like I invaded a country. Why was I being so penitent?
Then I realized that my penitence came from my Catholic upbringing. Now, by saying that, my aim is not to Catholic bash but to figure out my wacky behavior. I thought about the Act of Contrition we all had learned in Catholic school. At one point, the speaker asks forgiveness for all the wrongs ‘in thought and deed, what I have done and what I have failed to do’. Yep, Catholic guilt, it’s a killer.
But getting back to my being out of sorts because it is all about me. At the end of last week, we got new floors at the house, so my things were all over the place for awhile. Then yesterday, when I thought I had everything organized and sorted, I realized that I had lost a manuscript with five days worth of rewrite work written on it. Shit! I searched high and low, but no manuscript. Shit! I don't back-up the stuff I write down with a pen. Shit!
Realizing that pacing around the house was doing me no good, I went to Trader Joe’s to get some groceries. Nancy at the checkout greeted me with the usual Trader Joe’s hey, how are you this evening.
I didn’t tell Nancy about my Catholic guilt or my missing manuscript. I just told her I was a bit out of sorts but getting better with my purchase of soy milk, baby lettuce, chocolate cookies, and various other food things.
Nancy reassured me it was all getting better, and my grocery bill came to $19.71 which was the year I was born. Okay, it was getting better. I left Trader Joe’s with a slight spring in my step. When I got home, I found the manuscript. It was in a pocket of my computer bag.
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