Penny Post #27: Humanness
On a quest to become less human.
It was Sunday morning. 12 hours after receiving a covid booster shot and the flu vaccine. I awoke in a foggy haze, tossed and turn for a bit, then decided my adult ass needed to get the hell out of bed. I packed my bag, put the right-before-bed-tossed-on-the-floor clothes away, and I walked out the door.
It was only until I reached my car on the bottom floor of my apartment complex had I realized that I forgot my keys. And by forgot my keys, I mean that the keys I needed to get inside my car or get back inside my apartment or do anything worth doing that day were now locked inside my apartment.
It was Monday morning. I had just made myself a chai tea latte using a recipe that recommended steeping the tea bags in boiling water on the stove. Okay, allrecipes.com, as long as this “Copycat Starbucks Chai Tea Latte Recipe” actually tasted like the too-good-to-be-true Starbucks Chai Lattes. I’ll do what I gotta do. Even if it means steeping tea bags on the stove at 6am in the morning or buying a milk frother wand and then triple A batteries to operate said milk frother wand and searching every grocery store within a 10 mile radius to find the Tazo Chai Tea bags that are always emptied from the shelves.
I get a call from my boss. She’s caught the stomach bug. & my coworker who is supposed to open is also out sick. I have to be in office in twenty minutes despite the fact that my chai is not ready yet and I just buttered my bagel and it takes twenty minutes to get to the office without traffic.
I take several rushed sips and bites simultaneously before packing my bag and rushing out the door.
Nine hours later, upon returning home, I found my apartment unusually hot. 30 minutes after that, I found out why: someone had forgotten to turn the burner off that morning.
That someone is me.
It was Monday evening. I was finishing up a long day at work that required me to make some above-my-pay-grade decisions. I was trying to leave on time in order to uphold the boundary that I set for myself to strike a sustainable work/life balance. I logged off my computer, filed away my materials, said goodbye to my coworkers, and began to make the long trek to the parking garage.
It was only until I reached my car, roughly half a mile from my office, did I realize that once again, I didn’t have my keys.
They are patiently waiting for me in my desk drawer back in my office half a mile away.
Not to mention the fact that I wished everyone a “great weekend” on a Monday night.
You may be thinking, wow, this chick’s forgetful. And, yes, there may be some truth to that. I forgot my keys twice in less than 48 hours. I almost burned down my apartment complex for some damn chai tea. But I’m also human.
I’ve run over these events several thousand times in my mind trying to pinpoint exactly what went wrong. And time and time again I’ve been confronted with one very real, very unavoidable thing: I’m human.
Being human means sometimes I forget my keys and lock myself out of my apartment for several hours. Being human means I’m tired when I wake up and need a little boost of caffeine to get me going which may or may not cost me my apartment. Being human means I have to walk all the way back to my office at the end of a difficult work day and awkwardly explain my humanness to my coworkers because once again, I forgot my keys.
They say hindsight is 20/20. And after wracking my brain, I know that there is nothing in any of these circumstances that I could’ve done to change the outcome. Yes, I could always double check if I have my keys when leaving anywhere at anytime. Yes, I could never have chai tea ever again. Yes, I could become uptight and paranoid and constantly thinking of the worst thing that could happen because I’m human.
But, at what cost?
I lose my spontaneity. I lose my freedom. I lose my humanity.
What must I do to become less human? Become constantly anxious, planning for the worst. I’m going to need a way higher lexapro dose for that shit. One my psychiatrist probably wouldn’t sign off on.
I’m human. No lexapro will fix that.
And I don’t want it to either.
Until next time,
Kiera
My ap lit teacher once corrected my mistake when referring to a chai tea latte. Chai means tea in Hindi and and thus chai tea latte, another classic American grammatical mistake when combining another language, is just tea tea latte. Of course I didn’t wanna agree with her and like the rebel 17 year old I was, I told her I would still say it wrong. Now, 5 years later, I am a grammar and social justice warrior, not really on the grammar but I will say I am and s/o Anton for the latter, and pass on the knowledge bestowed upon me by those who know a helluva lot more than I