Visage

So here I am. January 2005. I’m looking into my first full year working. Last year was tough, and I got pretty burned. But I have learned a lot, and I have some good opportunities on my plate. For growth, for learning, for advancement. It seems pretty enticing.

And yet here I am today. I wore a business suit for the first time in months, and actually did a little makeup for work. I definitely look the corporate part today. Even though I always dress business formal, the suit adds a very different dimension.

And suddenly, I feel terribly out of place. Before, I loved wearing business suits – so much that I occasionally wore them on Shabbos. It was exciting, an adventuresome part of me that was just being developed and felt oh-so-grownup and oh-so-good. Now, I feel somehow misplaced. I look in the mirror and see an immaculately dressed adult woman who looks almost too corporate. I’ve got it down pat.

But inside, I hate it. When it comes right down to it, inside I do not feel like a corporate woman. My dream is not to be an EVP of whatever corporation and make x amount of money and do x amount of deals or whatever. I look into the working world and I see corruption, a zeal for money, and a never-ending wheel of money. Work to buy things so others can work to buy things and lend money so businesses can hire people to work to buy things and make things people work to buy…Utter emptiness. I am whittling away my time every day doing – what, exactly? Yes, yes, making money so I can live. Not to belittle that, but it isn’t a very deep satisfaction either.

So here I am, in this business suit. In this office where I really don't connect to anyone on anything more than a superficial level. I am a Jew. I have to remain separate. I do not eat what they eat, I do not talk like they talk, I do not care about what they care about, I do not think about what they think about. Trying to make it in this corporate maze I don't understand and fundamentally don't care to understand. Could I understand it? Could I work to understand the people in my office, to network, to gain a support system? Yes, of course. But I don't want to. I don't want to have to.

Even more, I don't want to make some corporate visage. I’ve worked my entire life to get that image out of me, to uncover who I really am and live that person. The last thing I feel like doing right now is rebuilding it! Who I am is who I am, and I don't want to reshape that for some job. I expect myself to be the best me, and I am working on bringing that into reality, in my personal life as well as in the office. Where office skills meet personal skills, change is welcomed. But to alter myself solely for the purpose of a job, in ways I don't want to otherwise? To put myself in compromising situations with non-Jews, with men in particular, with people I don't want influencing me, in immodest and non-kosher (in food and in appropriateness) environments? Uh, uh. I do what I can do to get and keep a job within the confines of what is appropriate and acceptable by G-d. But I’m not going to tread on shaky territory when after all, Hashem is ultimately my employer. I work for Him. I do as He instructs, I know He’ll take care of me. I start worrying when I have to do questionable things for some job. It shows I’m putting my trust in people, and not in Him.

So again, back to the business suit. I looked at me in it and thought – who are you? You don't look like the me inside, the me I picture myself being. You look like a corporate woman. But you don't look like me. I looked in the mirror and thought – I know it’s corny but it really works:

Look at me
I pass easily for a working girl
In a corporate world
But can it be
I’m not meant to play
This part?

Now I see
That if I were truly
To be myself
I will never get very far

Who is that girl I see?
Staring straight
Back at me
Why is my reflection someone
I don't know?

Somehow, I cannot fight
Who I am
Deep inside
When will my reflection show
Who I am
Inside