Break the silence.

A meeting at noon put me on guard. It was my mid-year review, and, whereas the meetings are usually pleasant and boring, this one wasn't boring. And it wasn't at all pleasant. My manager and supervisor used the meeting as an opportunity to tell me their grievances again, and then they tell me about how much I'm expected, no matter what, to continue to do better.

I wanted to run out of the meeting, down the aisle of cubicles, through the doorway, down the hall, toward the railing. And I thought about what it'd be like to jump. I thought about it, though, in terms of how it would affect things like company morale, overall monthly production. I thought about how it would reflect upon their management skills. I wondered if I'd become the subject of an awareness seminar. I wondered if my jump would work itself into the proper, "encouraging" management terminology.

But this job isn't worth sacrificing myself over.

I sat in that meeting, told them once again that I'm working and trying and have shown results. Blah blah blah.

My supervisor Ethan told me confidentially that the problem in the meeting was me. That, when the criticism was done, I should've gotten up and left. But I was in this sort of stunned, silent, frozen state. I hadn't expected my review to be a rehash of "How Benjie Is An Unreliable Worker." I hadn't even expected my manager and supervisor to attend it together. Usually, it's been the supervisor, and the meeting's been light.

It was painful.

And I just damn sat there.

That cast a pall over the rest of the day, unfortunately.

I met Ron's partner Shawn for the first time tonight, and I couldn't get over the case of nervous "I don't know how to reply or explain myself" nonsense that I had at the meeting.

Trying to explain that mood, I told Shawn I was nervous. I think that made it worse.

He tried talking to me about grad school application. I have nothing to say about that. He tried talking politics. I couldn't really formulate an interesting topic. Hell, even talking about London, I couldn't quite verbalize what I wanted to say. Ron praised my writing to Shawn, but I couldn't sound confident about it when I spoke about it.

Do you ever feel like every sentence you're saying isn't coming out the way that you're intending it to?

Ron told me that I was worrying unnecessarily about the impression I was making, that we had a fine evening.

We did. It was nice. Shawn was really, really nice, very smart and sweet to Ron. The food was good. The house was nice.

I just wish I could've relaxed more.

Ron told me to be myself. But I hadn't been myself all day.