Eleven hundred entries in five years and a bit. Do I know how to keep a monologue going or what? And the scary part is I keep this journal because despite talking for a living, and babbling like a three year old to my co-workers, friends, and strangers all the live-long day, I still have ideas I need to write about. I swear to you, though, I do have unexpressed thoughts. I can't help it if my mind gets very crowded very fast. I'd like to have one of those infinitely expanding brains everyone else seems to have, particularly those people who remember trivia like phone numbers and who was Secretary of State during the Harding administration, but I don't. I have to dump information or it becomes overwhelming.
Under the circumstances I wonder just how much I'd like a job that kept me at home. If I decided to write for a living, for instance, would I become one of those women who talk to everyone in sight, desperately chatting up the bank clerk, the grocery bagger, the poor soul stuck in an elevator with me? It doesn't seem so farfetched to me.
I do sometimes wish I could go back to being an independent agent, rustling up my own clients and coming into the office just to run tickets once or twice a week. That's what I did in Nashville for a semester. It enabled me to start at Middle Tennessee State University where I took courses in College Math and English Romantic Poets after being out of school for fifteen years. Unfortunately, I didn't make much money. I was busy studying, enjoying afternoon naps, and talking online with my new friends. And now it's not possible to do it since I don't have an established clientele base. Plus there's that whole no commission thing working against me. Those days are gone.
And yet, despite getting hoarse, despite feeling guilty and angry simultaneously about having to charge more and higher fees, despite wishing I never again had to worry about just exactly how crazy the crazy person sitting at my desk is, I do like working directly with people. It forces me out of my head and into someone else's frame of reference. It teachs me to communicate clearly. It also reminds me that I'm privileged and very lucky. I had all the benefits of caring parents who taught me ethics, morals, values, and why they matter. I was properly socialized, exposed to cultures other than my own, given plenty of love and food and exercise, and showered with all the material blessings of a middle class upbringing. Life's been good to me and I know it. But in case I'm tempted to forget or be grumpy about what I don't have I am constantly reminded that life holds no guarantees. All I have to do is go to work and talk to the people that wander in our door looking for a ticket, a vacation, or just a place to get out of the rain.
Maybe a year from now I won't have a choice. Maybe I'll have to stay home and find out if I'm one of the Annoying Chatty People. I hope not. I think I would miss getting paid to talk.
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