The Other Shoe

I realized the other day that I’ve spent my life waiting for the other shoe to drop about the most inconsequential shit. I was cleaning up the guest room ahead of a weekend visitor and that involved shifting a bunch of business files, which I carefully put somewhere where I could quickly lay my hands on them…just in case.

The business in question was handled, everything went fine, product and money exchanged hands, and there is no possible problem that could arise. Oh, and this transaction happened in 2010.

Yet I kept every scrap of paperwork, and intend to keep every scrap of paperwork for eternity, because, OMG, you never know! What if a time traveler from FY2010 approaches me on the street and, at gunpoint, demands evidence of this minor transaction?

The issue is greater than that, though. I keep everything. Just in case. Even worse, the sense that something will go wrong extends into all of my relationships and my daily life. At work I’ll get praised and lavished with raises and awards and my only thought is: When’s the other shoe gonna drop? Friends and lovers cherish me and support me and love me and, at every step, I wonder, man, the other shoe has got to drop.

I’m sure to get fired. Everyone will leave me. My writing sucks. This blog will get hacked and destroyed. The IRS are going to come after me because I was $10 short on my 1994 taxes. These things can happen at any moment. I feel it coming. The other shoe.

The happier I am, the worse this gets. For decades I scrimped and saved, sacrificed everything to get to a point where I could at least be moderately comfortable and not have to tackle half a dozen jobs over the course of a 100 hour work week. I made it. The long, sad, ranting, angry tale of Greatsociety ends with me being happy, settled, aware, awake, out of pain, and ready for the future.

So I know…I just fucking know it…the other shoe is gonna drop any time now.