And Nevermind

Elaina had been in a mostly good mood lately, she had gotten to lead some projects at work, and finally was feeling excited about things again. Not everything was perfect though, her boss was still stepping on her toes on an almost daily basis. Not only that but the mayor’s office seemed reluctant to get some of the ideas they had agreed on started. It was frustrating and put a damper on her new found enthusiasm, but on the whole, she could feel the new possibilities and excitement that had come with the whole new leaf kick she was on.

 Despite the fact that it was Saturday, she wanted to continue the productivity from the week. She has some massive grant application to fill out for Yelsnag park and wanted to get a head start so they were ready to submit by Monday. Back when she was living and working in New York she would frequently go to work in the library and when she first had arrived in Pointe Place it had been a popular spot for her as well. She decided to get out of her apartment coffee shop usual working spots and backed her laptop and headed to the library.

 When she got to the library it was shockingly crowded, this is weird she thought to herself. She looked around and saw a few giant TED signs and a crowd of people heading into the main atrium. She had work to do, but this seemed like something she should check out, she let the crowd carry her inside and took a seat. The speaker turned out to be Ryan Lochte, not the most exciting to Elaina. The swimmer had had a couple falls from grace and now he seemed to really have gone astray given that he was at a tiny TED conference in a tiny town, insignificant to say the least. He started talking and talking and talking, and Elaine found herself zoning in and out of the discussion. At one of the moments where she was actually tuning in, she heard something that was kind of interesting.

“Here’s the thing guys, even if you are a titan of your field, people fall off the path all the time, but you know what you gotta do, you just have to keep moving, keep doing stuff, it doesn’t matter what stuff, but you just have to keep doing something.”

 That’s actually a good point Elaina started thinking. She kept listening.

“I mean you can take that from me look at my story, I never stop doing stuff, I’m a prime example of this, and look at how successful I’ve been, a much more American swimmer than some other people.”

And there it goes though Elaina, she let herself zone out again.

Fresh start

Elaina surveyed all the damage as she made her commute home from work the next day. She saw plenty of neighbors trying to get their affairs in order from the storm, taking pictures for insurance, clearing away branches, working together to push cars over to the junkyard. As sad as it was, and as many people as had been hit, there were few truly horrible casualties. Any injuries were minor, people had places to sleep, the power had come back online relatively quickly. The work part of Elaina, as disillusioned as she had been lately, was buzzing with all the potential projects that such a fresh slate after the storm presented. She and Joseph had done quite a bit of brainstorming in relation to Yelsnag Park, and that was just the beginning of the changes that Elain could see. In that moment, Elaina did something different that she had done since she had moved to Point Place. For years she hadn’t taken advantage of the wave of energy that came from having an exciting idea, instead, she had let it come and go. This time she noticed the uptick in brainstorming, the nagging at the back of her head to write it all down before she forgot. She made it home, and before even taking the time to make coffee, take off her makeup, or anything besides open her laptop. She started typing away writing down all her ideas, making to-do lists, starting proposals. She didn’t stop until she looked up and saw that it was 3 am. She was both surprised and happy, she was tired in the way that you were after working extra hard, not the same listless caffeine driven day she had been having. The next morning, Elaina woke up with unusual vigor. Checking her computer to make sure that god forbid all her work from last night hadn’t deleted, she skipped her usual job site scrolling and instead sent an email to her boss, asking if they could talk for a bit that morning. Gearing herself up as she went about her morning, getting ready, driving to work, and walking in the building, she thought back to those cheesy dove commercial ad of the woman in the bathroom hyping herself up before asking for a raise. Taking a deep breath she walked and said “Good morning Mr. Anders, I have an idea I want to run by you.”