The dangers of mild success

You close the door to your apartment, and immediately kick off your heels. They're not tall heels, but they're certainly not sneakers either. The immediate silence, you are too aware of -- after noticing it once, and how it was somehow, ironically deafening, it was hard to ignore anymore.

Your office job, is busy. But not too busy. After processing insurance reports for years, -- not claims but reports thereof, to be collated and succinctly ignored by upper management -- you eventually made your way all the way up to middle management, and acquired a staff of slightly naive twenty-somethings doing what you used to do, for you. You made a role for yourself by designing spreadsheets highlighting the importance of your data -- which by all means already was important, but you were able to take credit for it to some degree -- you moved up to UPPER-middle management. Now with SEVERAL teams of twenty-somethings, not getting any more clever year after year. They eventually had to stop calling you a supervisor, and made the desk plaque describing you as the Data Processing Manager you were. After two years of THAT, even that lofty, yet miscellaneous role has grown comfortable. --Boring, let's go ahead and say boring. You've automated most of your role, and unless they spontaneously hire an IT pro to come audit your department, (The Rapture shall certainly happen sooner), it will stay that way. And all it cost was now being a thirty-something.

...Even that explanation was boring. Your apartment is a recessed house, nestled in suburbia with a cul-de-sac just past your house and everything, rented-with-the-option-to-buy, and you've been floating the buying part for a while, but don't have a real solid reason to pull the trigger. You drive a BMW to and from work, and it's always pristine. Because only you ever use it, and only to commute and back. And you don't even have anyone to brag to -- for the same reasons.

Your cat, Pop-tart, makes his way to greet you, and rubs his getting-chunky butt up against you, as if he needs to seduce dinner out of you every night. Meowing and complaining, he doesn't let up until it's on the floor, when he's suddenly quiet as a church mouse. The little shit.

Cooking... sounds like a REAL drag. You can afford to have food delivered, but didn't get this much money by doing so whenever the temptation strikes. --You suffice for starting fish and pasta, with minimal seasoning. You've gotten used to an ascetic diet. ...Plus you're totally getting fat.

While dinner cooks, you use the time for a shower. When you were younger, your figure was flattering, and you were hit up regularly. Often. Annoyingly so. Now... it's... normalized. Your hourglass is now more Campbell's soup. Sitting up straight in an office chair, slightly hurts your stomach...

Not that it mattered. You tried the Tinder scene when it was big, and it was absolutely brain-dead. Stressful, even. Didn't even follow through with a single date. Men should be shot out of a cannon, into the sun. One-by-one. They should set up the cannon at work...

After putting on PJ's and fetching your middling dinner, you sit on your couch -- Pop-tart is ready to guide you in for a landing, having smelled the fish -- and turn on the TV. You just finished the second zombie series. Third? You... made it to the end? But barely. You were tempted to quit in the middle, but wanted the satisfaction of completion, at least. You browse around for something else to watch... how can they have so, so much stuff, without ANYTHING interesting?? Your food is growing cold, under Pop-tart's close supervision, and frustrated, you hit play on some logging reality show and eat.

After dinner, you wash your plate and put it in the cupboard, with it's visible wear-and-tear, atop otherwise pristine plates. No need for the dishwasher tonight, either.

After washing up, you walk towards your room, but stop in the hallway. You could vacuum, it's still pretty early. You have several books to finish reading, but they've all been misses so much that you're not only uninterested -- screw the completion satisfaction -- but you're not even sure what else to read instead. You used to read more interesting stuff, but now you wouldn't even know where to look...

Moments like these were a purgatory. More time than you knew what to do with, but not enough time to do anything serious. Starting a new hobby would be a miserable leap of faith -- a waste of money, sure, but even worse a waste of time. Even though you had plenty, you also never had ANY, seemingly, and so the idea of pissing it away on a hobby you wind up not enjoying feels even more anxious, as though you weren't burning it away anyway.

So, in a natural turn of events, you wind up at the fridge, and peer in. Mostly just leftovers you'll likely never eat yet very much also don't throw away right now, and certainly no tempting snacks. Milk that you use for morning coffee, that might be going a bit off -- you tend to just get coffee at work more often -- a few, loose condiment packets in the cold-cut drawer. Near the bottom, the bottle of wine from your friend Ericka's wedding, that in a fit of bridezilla fashion she had her entire bridal party custom labelled bottles. That was a few years ago, already... does wine go bad?? The strong stuff doesn't, but wine? No, they age it, right? But even if it's been opened..? Did you ever open it??

You close the door. Ericka. You DO have friends. It's not that you don't. But you haven't been in contact with any one in particular in... uh... long enough that it feels somehow **** to cold-call anyone. It never felt like that before. You used to be the one connecting everybody, even! And more... so much more than now.

...What should you do now?? Why is this even a question? You feel like you could easily think of fun things, and oftentimes DO while you're otherwise tied up at work, as if they're the most obvious things, yet now it's an absolute blank. --You could travel. You should travel; you always say so to yourself. And you could do it cheap, because of work's trips, but... when you think about the prospect of the scheduling, the parking fees, catching the flight, being on a plane for hours, hustling here, there... what about taking some time off? You have hours banked for miles. --No, even if you DID, what would you do? PROPERLY flounder with not finding a hobby? Dating apps? --As if. Get the fuck out of here.