december story cont'd

 as she heaved the cardboard box carrying all that remained of her work-a-day job into the dumpster, she felt like a kid who was let out of school for the summer-absolutely free. and  even better than that she was tossing away all the stuff that had threatened to hold her down, like an automaton and make her become like them: with  their nervous slightly worried  dispositions, constantly looking over their shoulders, just waiting to make that  final mistake that would be written up in their job performance folder, a black check next to their names in the book where such things are recorded until the day when all the black checks added up to a pink slip slipped under their door,telling them their services were no longer needed.. this time she wasn't worried-they could plaster her entire cubicle with pink slips and fill her folder to the brim with black checks-she wouldn't be there to read them. she'd wasted five years of her all too finite life, behind the desk of the xyg gallery doing what   she was  supposed to do, and she was no further ahead than when she was hired, no promotions,not even a job well done, and she had had enough- she had reached her limit, she was going to pick up the pieces of her long neglected creative life before it was too late.
 the first thing she had to do was move. she could no longer afford(in fact she never could afford) the apartment she shared with four other girls in manhattan. not that they would miss her- for every person leaving, there was always someone coming, so her space would not stay vacant for long. she was moving back to staten island, the forgotten borough, where rents were a 1/4 or  less than those in manhattan- she could probably get a house, for what she would pay for a studio apartment. she could live with her sister for awhile, until she got a part-time job and could afford to look for an apartment.

 installment 2. this will have to go into january's story because  i doubt if i'll post again before christmas, but you never know.have a wonderful holiday everyone and i'll be back with some more of the story and some pictures of my new paintings. i'm going to try over the christmas break to put together something to be published in one of the somerset magazines or other publications. i'm also going to look into starting a web site to showcase my paintings, also plan to work on my children's book. a little too ambitious for one week i know- so if i get to doing some work on each thing and do a little painting ,i'll consider myself lucky. merry christmas!!!brigid