That's bleak.

Dear Diary,

Today I spent 7 hours reviewing documents on my computer, the vast majority of which (for ease of use) are in Chinese. For another three hours I was in a meeting that was only supposed to last one. I spent one of those hours mainlining three diet cokes and pinching my leg to stay awake so as not to look like a class A buffoon in front of the four partners upon whose asses I must lay sweet, tender kisses so that I can justify the three weeks of vacation I am taking this month, one week of which I have already spent blissfully eating the biggest platters of chimichangas you have ever seen while visiting my fiance's fam in Texas. Yee haw. And now I am crash dieting away those extra queso folds away before I sausage myself into last season's bikini for two glorious weeks of lounging beachside in beautiful Boca Raton, margarita in hand, eyeballing up the hot slice of man meat at my side named Oscar (no, not a Meyer frank, my darling partner in crime and betrothed love). So yah, thats what's up.  Yay life.  (I say that without the slightest tinge of mirth).

I just stumbled upon a note I wrote maybe nine months ago, when I first started this job.  It struck me as super bleak, and all the more so because I still identify with the sentiment.  Perhaps it can be properly characterized as a moment of "confounded loss of self-identity."  It has gotten better, and easier, because of the positive feedback I have received, and the accomplishments that I can write down on paper and point to.  But the reality of myself operating the world is still oddly novel to me, and I constantly reflect on how I am perceived by others...

An excerpt:

     "I won't lie to myself, saying that I never thought today would come, and yet I sit here on this commuter train with regret and confusion. I am a fraud, I truly felt that tonight, and though I expected this moment to arrive, I am thoroughly affected and offput. I convinced myself that this was within my capacity, that I could belong if only I tried hard enough, wanted it badly enough -- as if a square peg was ever made to fit into a round hole.  I thought that this was an adventure made to test my metal, because who am I really?  If I don't know, and they don't know, why couldn't I be one of them?  There are of course differences in interests, in experience, and in levels of seriousness, but I believed it was as easy as fooling them.  And perhaps I succeeded for a short while, in that interview where I sat politely and in awe, portending my skill and parading in farce; during these first weeks as I waltz the halls in suits and heels and high-buttoned collared shirts, relishing in the interest I must have sparked in these lawyers as they tried to comprehend such a contradiction:  a woman, bright and young and carefully put together, desiring only to sit in an office for twelve hours researching arcane regulations and bone dry legislation.  What a novelty!  But the weeks have progressed and I cannot, because my limited vocabulary and further limited grasp are being tested and I cannot fake this.  This cannot be dressed up in a pencil skirt and horn-rimmed glasses and defined as talent, because it is not.  And perhaps I was never really given a chance, because they saw this from the beginning, and my farce was obvious to them but they were obligated nonetheless. Of course, they did. Their highly trained eyes could not be misdirected by a crisp white blouse and heeled loafers. How many young lawyers they have seen, grounded and weighted by their conviction in this practice!  I must have seemed so naive, for all my attempts at sincerity! Of course I have been given no work, they never intended to give work to a mere office installation!
     And I know this. I knew this. I knew that being taken seriously was not going to happen on the first day, or the first week. I thought I could earn it, by performing outstandingly on my first assignment or project or what have you.  I did not expect to be humored and forgotten.  I thought at least I would be given an opportunity to fail before being written off. And yet, the new work comes in, and I am not given that opportunity.

     Where do I go from here? Walk back into that office tomorrow again and for the rest of the year, the rest of my life until swine becomes swan and I suddenly am one of them? I wake up in 20 years and I am lead bitch attorney, with no life and no humor, and the "me" disappears forever? And who could I be now if I just allowed myself to BE?  If I stopped trying to become others' expectations and tried instead to be the "me" I am so concerned to lose?"

These insecurities plague me constantly.  I wonder if it ever goes away...