by | June 7, 2012 · 11:28 am

The Boxer

 March 20, 2011
“I am just a poor boy but my story’s seldom told, I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises”

I am writing because I have failed again at something that just a few days ago I viewed as important. For the last two years I have tried my hand at so any different things, all bohemian. These endeavors have brought me little success and even less money. So why do I keep trying when every door I open is violently slammed in my face?

“Asking only workman’s wages I come looking for a job, but I get no offers,”

The truth is I want to give up. I want to give up my dreams and get a job at a place with health insurance that will pay me a salary somewhere between minimum wage and decent. A place like Verizon, for example.  I could’ve done it, thrown in the metaphorical towel and began working at the mall as a Customer Service Rep, but the truth about that is, a few nights ago I got an email from them saying that they chose a better candidate for the position. I find it laughable that with ten years work experience and a bachelor’s degree I am not qualified to sell phones.

“Then I’m laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone
going home, where the New York City winters aren’t bleeding me,”

Why was this winter so horrific for me even after I spent the last few in Northern Vermont? I didn’t think two years ago, I would still be in the position of looking for a job. I didn’t think one year ago I would still be looking for a job, yet I am. The relentless mounting snow this January reflected my reality.
Coincidentally, I find myself complaining about where I am in life on the same day I finished writing a motivational article which included a section called “cliche suggestions that really do work.” These suggestions included a few gems like, “Never give up, even on your worst day,” and “Even when nothing is going your way, keep going.”
Last night when I was having a cranial pity-party, those aforementioned quotations came to mind. Shut up, I wanted to say, but knew they were right.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. At times, it does kind of feel like I am banging my head up against a wall,  and that is precisely why I should take my own advice and for good measure, let’s throw in a dose of “living in the moment.” Living in the moment does several things. It allows you to appreciate the good things, the mediocre things, and the stable things. When choosing to exist mentally in the moment, by default you are unable to tally up your past failures or worry about your future tries.

“In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade, and he carries the reminders, of ev’ry glove that laid him down, or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame I am leaving, I am leaving, but the fighter still remains,”

I may not have success, I may not have a job, and I dare compare my self to Simon and Garfunkle’s Boxer.  I look back and know I have failed and failed again, but at the same time I have tried -with a vengeance. I am like the poor boy at the beginning of the song. Young, beaten down, but resilient, still hangin’ on, holding on for dear life. I imagine his “pocket full of mumbles such are promises,” went something like, “Follow your dreams son,” or maybe “Never give up, even on your worst day,” and “Even when nothing is going your way, keep going.”  Sometimes I curse the day my father told me to go out there and be myself; to follow my artistic inclinations. Couldn’t he have told me to be something more practical, like an accountant?
“All Lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest,”

Regardless of reality, I have come too far, like the pitbull with lipstick, perhaps I too am unaware of my inabilities; yet too full of chronic ignorance to give up.

The Boxer lyrics by Paul Simon, recorded by Simon and Garfunkle

Music: Simon and Garfunkle’s The Boxer

May 5, 2011

So the above story was written March of last year. A week or so before writing this I’d auditioned for a TV show in front of at least a hundred people and had inevitably not received a call back. In fact, I was not even a runner up let alone the choice for the role… I felt humiliated but at the same time I couldn’t believe that I had went through with it and pulled off a halfway decent monologue in front of that many people. That made me feel pretty powerful, but then there was the aftermath. No job. An awful boyfriend. No future.

And then about a week later something miraculous happened. I got a stellar writing opportunity. I was amazed by how quickly things had turned around for me. And as sad as this post might’ve sounded in the beginning this is truly a story about hope.

5 Comments

Filed under Friendship, Growth, Healing, Journal, Life Lessons, relationships

5 Responses to The Boxer

  1. Linda Seccaspina
    June 7, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    You are not a library… you are your own building..
    never share what is steadfast to you unless you are sure.
    HUGGGGGGGG

  2. Yahaira
    June 7, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    We all have a deck of cards we gotta learn how to play with! Don’t give up on love & life, you’re day will come. 🙂 xoxo

  3. Paul Roese
    June 7, 2012 at 9:26 pm

    by all means perform senseless acts of beauty and random acts of kindness but don’t forget to do things for yourself but don’t set yourself up for failure by having unrealistic “Great Expectataions.”:->

    • Hayley Rose
      June 8, 2012 at 3:53 pm

      Hahahaha… I dunno- I continue to have great expectations- though the concept of “mediocre expectations” still makes me laugh 🙂

  4. Suzanne Smith
    June 19, 2012 at 6:12 am

    There is always hope. You give me hope. Thank you. And you are already there. You are already fine no matter what.