Work In Progress

Arrogance often gives way to incompetence; a naivety that haunts the surrounding victims of its toils and triumphs. The ego is a powerful, brutal, all-encapsulating tool of the human psyche that corrupts even basic thought and habit, down to the very nature of ones verbal content and self-esteem. Perhaps arrogance, then, was self-confidence on a desperate high that pulls the ego through several stages of insensitive denials.

You are not weak; you are strong. In fact, you are the strongest. You are not stupid; you are intelligent. You are not ugly, not slow, not flawed, until that very moment when one falls so hard that the ego is forced to do the unthinkable: surrender. But that is not in the mind of the arrogant, fore they believe that they cannot and will not fall. And they will not, because they know that they are loved by all. They know that they will not lose solely based on who they are; and no longer is neither skill nor attitude relevant.

Perhaps that was precisely why I found myself forever in the shadow of confidence, oozing my own kind of quiet glory that filled me with an insatiable desire to bring joy to those important to me. Vast as my patience persisted to be a virtue to be thankful for, my faith in myself ran deep. Was this "faith" arrogance? I digress in believing so. I always had; and because of him, perhaps I always will.

-

I was caught in a deep sleep, the warmth of a heated home and the soft, plush surface of the carpet beneath me all the more enticing as I lay beside two small bodies. One stirred, a tiny yawn leaving the girl's mouth as she sat up and pushed on my stomach. Her brother awoke shortly thereafter, my arm slipping unintentionally from beneath his head. He caught himself, though, and peered up at me with tired eyes; the same ones that I had exhibited myself, I was sure.

The sound of the front door shutting and the jingle of keys alerted both kids to the homecoming of their parents, who had just returned home after a night out. While they crawled down the nearest cushion tunnel, I bluntly sat up and knocked the roof off of the fort we made what felt like hours ago. It took watching one movie on my laptop inside of the thing for all of us to pass out, not that I was complaining. It made my job much easier to get the kids to nap.

"Looks like you guys have had fun," Andrea, an enviable beauty in only her mid-forties, commented. Her long, blonde locks had been pulled back into a crystal-encrusted clip that glowed just as much as her eyes did when she set eyes on her children. To say that she loved the two munchkins to pieces was a clear understatement, but I suppose motherhood and two borderline perfect kids would do that to some people.

I shrugged at her comment, stretching before frantically pushing the larger cushions back in their designated spots on the couch. "It was the usual night of sorcery and them chasing me around."

"Lyssy's a dragon!" Carson, the young boy, roared, clinging to my leg as I shoved a cushion in place. His sister didn't hesitate to join him, leaving me with two five-year-olds clinging to my every now awkward step.

"A dragon, really?" their father asked in awe, coming back from the master bedroom just down the nearest hall. He handed me an envelope containing my pay for the night and picked up Carson before the little ankle-biter could really latch on.

"They love the medieval stuff. Watch out or they'll start building trebuchets and launching fireballs at each other."

"Mommy, what's a treboo... A trebutt... A that-thingy?" This time the questioning came from Sarah, the bouncing little brunette who took after her father's looks, big blue eyes scrunched as she attempted to figure out what my catapult was. In her confusion, she let go of my leg and wandered over to her mother, who was waiting for her with open arms and a toy she had found in the back of the car.

"Thank you so much, as always," Andrea offered, ushering both kids toward the hall and coincidentally, the bathroom. "Alright you guys, it's time to get ready for bed. Teeth brushing time, let's go!"

"It's no problem, really," I commented with a soft smile and finished my work straightening out the living room.

David remained, watching my curiously. "Do you know your schedule for next semester yet? We'd love to schedule you whenever you're available and feel like watching those two. They just love you," he stated with a smile.

"I'll print you a copy for the next time I watch them. I know I have no Friday classes, but since I still work, I'll likely only be available for evenings week-long again."

"That'd be perfect. We love being able to get you over here once, maybe twice, a week just so Andy and I can get out and unwind for a little while. You know how stressful work and life can be."

"Don't you know it."

-

The trip to my apartment was short, but just long enough to require that I need a car, especially during the winter seasons when the snow could potentially prove lethal. I lived just inside of Ottawa’s confines, the bustling city below my humble abode a beautiful, lively symphony of lights and sounds at all hours of the night. The neighborhood was busy, yes, but not so boisterous that it caused discomfort and not so quiet that I felt the insatiable need for human contact comparable to life in purgatory. My existence there was one of forever teetering balance, completely unpredictable. And while, don’t get me wrong, I loved the city for all it was worth, there lingered still the obstacle before me that had haunted me for years, even before moving there.

“Oh you’re home,” my mother greeted me as I softly shut the door at my back. The living room was spotless, something that was unusual in this constantly overturned household. “You’ll never guess what happened to me today.”

I often found myself so…

“What, ma?”

Out of place.

“They hired me.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to face the news lingering, teetering with an ecstatic air just over my shoulder. “No way,” I murmured, eyes falling on her own. There, hidden behind the smile on her lips, was the bold truth. For the first time in years, her aged face had a low gleam; the kind of subtle energy that foretold an untold, all too powerful form of joy that was all too easily over-looked by the common eye. But it was there, in the corner of her lips, that an overwhelming giddiness was clearly visible. My mother was finally beginning the career she had always wanted.

“Now it doesn’t pay much, and I probably won’t be doing much heavy writing, but… I got it.”

My arms slung around her shoulders in a matter of seconds, feet almost leaving the ground as I leaped at the women with tears staining the fabric of her blouse. She was shaking in my arms then, unable to vehemently express her exact state of mind. There was nothing more than this for her; no reason to keep the almost too expensive apartment, no reason to maintain an appearance or a self-esteem. It was as though the clouds had parted just overhead, the fury of a passing storm nothing more than a gentle breeze at her feet. For the first time that I could remember, she was trembling.

We had lived in that generally musty space for years, having moved from one side of Ottawa to the other for work-related convenience when I was in high school. Mom had jumped around rather often, trying to find a stable situation after my dad left the picture. I was seventeen when he walked out on us, seventeen when I was forced to grow up a little faster than anticipated. From all that I still vividly remembered, we didn’t exactly have the most flawless relationship.

And to be honest, I wasn’t so surprised when he left.

The bitterness dissipated after so long—after all, how can one remain bitter toward memories that allotted her strength, experience that made her skin thicker and her will stronger? I had never been closer to my mother than I was then, holding her close in the entry way. Hell, I hadn’t been so close to her since I had turned eighteen and all she could afford was the little diamond necklace she bought me by saving the money she usually spent on lunch or gas.

To understand where I was coming from, to understand that I was of humble background, comes at little cost. I was a relatively average person with an unfortunately average background, living in an average apartment in an average side of town around average people drinking average coffee on an average work day. And that was my existence, likely ninety percent of the time. I had the pleasure of meeting exciting people on occasion, of going out with my small circle of friends and partaking in the basic rights of adulthood.

I was no virgin to the joys of Ottawa and I love my city like I love my family. But every now and again, a cool breeze rolls in. It breaths with an ominous glower, the low howl of change kissing my cheeks light as the steam rising from heated water. And it is in this place that I have found a new kind of anticipation, in this place that I have often wondered why I was becoming more optimistic than I had ever cared to look on the guise of life.

Or perhaps it was not optimism that I felt, but the urge to move on to the next scene of my adulthood. After all, there’s only so many years that one can spend home before finally feeling the aches of darkness on the skin, the hollow confines caging a curious soul from the outskirts of natural boundaries. And perhaps my drive and curiosity could be construed negatively, my desire to understand the events to come leaving me breathless with anticipation and rushing through the average day. To feel as though perhaps tomorrow would leave the world of “average” behind lit a flame in me, one that would not die down until the last drop of kerosene whisked me to that incredible future I had been longing for.