hold on

"You've got no one to blame for your unhappiness."

Marcie woke up with a grunt. She could never sleep past seven am without the neighbor's carpool honking to wake her up. Today was no different. She sat up reluctantly, looked over at Glenn resentfully, and stumbled out of bed. Somehow Glenn always slept through the stupid carpool. He conveniently slept until after she had gone outside to get the paper and the coffee was fully brewed.

Marcie's disdain for the day continued as she edged through traffic only to arrive at work more disgusted than when she got in the car. Her mood today was sullen. She skulked around the office, barking at her secretary, mumbling at her supervisor, and half-heartedly finishing the marketing reports for tomorrow.

About thirty minutes before time to clock out, Marcie's secretary came into her office and gave a two weeks notice. The girl's name was Darelle. She was barely twenty-five years old. Marcie's curiosity peaked and she had Darelle sit down to explain.

Darelle briefly looked surprised, then took a seat directly across from Marcie. Over the next twenty minutes, Darelle explained that this secretary job was just to bring in some money. Her real passion had always been painting, and she had worked hard to make a name for herself in the local galleries. It had finally paid off. For the last six months her paintings had been in high demand. So she was leaving to take on her passion full time.

Darelle left Marcie in her office thinking about passion. It almost seemed like a foreign word. Or like a dirty word. Passion. Marcie didn't think that passion had a place in her life. Mortgages, grocery shopping, oil changes, meetings, electric bills, traffic. That was her life. A husband whose face she rarely saw peek out from behind the newspaper.

Passion. Marcie wasn't even sure the last time she felt it. But she knew that it had been there at one point. The relish of creating innovative and effective marketing strategies. The comfort in settling down into a house. The lust and love for her husband that brought them together every night. Those things were a decade past. They had no place in her life now.

Yet still she was envious of Darelle. Of her passion.