on being good

the thing i wanted most was to be good.

but no one told me that meant different things to different people and that’s a kind of dance i can’t keep up with so i settle for good enough.

i had a boss once who told me at my yearly review that she doesn’t give out ‘excellent’ as a rating because there is always room for improvement and i wondered “who hurt you?” and if she would answer any recognition of reward with “I don’t deserve this.” i bet she’s never eaten a sleeve of crackers in one sitting ir know the joy of calling in sick to work because there is someone cute in bed next to you and there’s a chance it might be magic or at least there can be breakfast and i can inhale an entire order of temple of spuds and drink bad coffee and spend the day smoking cigarettes in the park. which isn’t good. is it? maybe this is bad but it sure felt right at the time.