The 60th percentile

Photo credit: Smalltowngirl, Taiwan 2007

Bon Iver creeps out of my stereo and cars pass quietly down the street outside my open window. I'm in pajamas and glasses, thinking back over the past week, and thinking forward to a future that's looking better than it was a few days ago.

Doubt covers me some days, suffocating me until what started out coming in from the outside seeps through my skin and resides inside of me, infiltrates every thought, and dominates my perspectives on my life.

I read recently that more than 40th of Americans actively dislike their jobs.I was in the 60th percentile of Americans. I'm not used to being so middle-of-the-road statistically.

***

As a kid, I'd get sick to my stomach when the Missouri Mastery Achievement Test would come each spring.

The teacher would seperate our desks so that we could not see each other's exams. She (all of my teachers were women) would explain, using white chalk drawings on a black board, how to properly fill in the little multiple choice bubbles.

She would also make sure that every had two sharpened No. 2 pencils ready on their desks. She would open her copy of the thin paper test booklet, and she would read the test instructions to the class.

I think it was in the very first year that I had to suffer through these exams that I was diagnosed with stomach ulcers for the first time. I would sit, listening to the teacher read the directions, and my stomach would burn. Butterflies would creep from my tummmy into my chest and arms, leaving my fingers tingly and leaving me doubtful that I'd earn an acceptable score again this year.

When my test scores would arrive in the mail weeks later I was almost always in the 98th percentile. How then, at this stage in my life, have I found myself in the 60% of Americans who actively dislike their work?

***

For the last several weeks, I've hoped to understand where my life was meant to go in both the romantic and the professional departments. Doubt had crept in, and as usual, it was suffocating. I looked inward enough to know that I could use some help, and then I looked upward to ask for it.

This week, I was presented with a new professional opportunity that I think would put me back up in the 90th percentile of job satisfaction. And by contrast, decisions were made for me in the romantic department that seem to have answered my own doubts and questions.

Bon Iver eases his was smoothly out of my stereo, and a yawn spreads through my jaw and chest. My eyes water just a bit, and my eyelids droop. Before I close my eyes and fall into sleep, I smile because I can already see the 40th percentile behind me getting smaller as I walk away.