…not what I planned at all…

I feel I should get this, or this, for my wall. 

A few weeks ago, I stumbled on a job opportunity that looked like it would be good for me to go after.  I met the requirements, it looked like fun work so I threw caution to the wind and sent a resume.  A week after that I got called in for an interview and took today off from the placeholder job to cast my lot.  This was in no way a make or break kind of employment opportunity.  If I didn’t get it, no big.  If I did…sweet chance for adventure.  This lack of urgency was great since it was a no pressure situation, and I show up at the appointed time calm and cool.  Totally at ease, relaxed and confident.  They call my name, I saunter up to the door to the room and gracefully close the door behind me.

I greeted them with a polite, “g-g-goodm-morning..?” and then things began to go terribly wrong.

For some reason, every positive aspect of me stayed on the other side of the door.

I don’t stutter, but I passed it off as a momentary verbal-brain disconnect.  I think they asked how I was(I’m not 100% on that because I was thinking about the stuttering) and I replied, “I’m fine how are you?”  Unfortunately(and I wish this were an exaggeration), my vocal cords decided to remember the time when puberty was upon me and my voice resembled a screeching cat scraping its claws on the blackboard.  That was when time began to slow down and I could literally feel myself beginning to sweat(everywhere and all at once).  I froze, I stumbled/fumbled, I was without (witty or otherwise)repartee, and when I could find the words…well with the voice of a mid-pubescent…screature(trademark) stuck in my wind pipe, the situation was horrific.  I felt the air cringe.  The only saving throw I made was that I neither vomited, or soiled myself.  At the end I apologized for their time and took my hasty leave, which required three attempts at the door(great in physical comedy, not in real life).

It’s not that I won’t get the job(of that I am certain) that bothers me, like I stated before it was one of those great if I get it, life continues if I don’t kind of situations.  What does vex me is the fact that I locked up/froze/Hindenberged.  I don’t recall that level of terror in a long, long time.  I’m talking elementary school ago, in front of the church congregation, child humiliation/terror.  I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone on the hour and a half long(made longer) train ride home, and when by chance I did, luck had it that it was to connect with an angry fellow who was already speaking angrily to me(he’d apparently been in a custody battle and was awarded two days a month with his kids and he may have hinted, repeatedly, that he felt race played an issue) and when I looked over at him, he went off.  Thankfully, we were near his stop and my inability to offer anything more than a deer in headlights stare and slight head shaking convinced him that I was from out of town.  “You’re not even American,” he mumbled as he got off the train.

But I veer from the point…avoidance of the issue.

I got home, had a late lunch, hid under a blanket(metaphorically) for awhile and have spent the past however many hours trying to figure out what switch I tripped today/if my ego is trying to teach me a lesson/why I sabotaged myself…whatever.

All I know is that everything that happened was…