Failed

Right, I didn't think today would be a double entry day, but here we go, I guess.

You remember the oral exam? 

Well. I failed it.

Done. Said it.

I failed this shit again. I keep failing and there's no end in the realm of failure for me.

Not only that, but insultingly so. The threshold for succeeding was at 17/20. What was my grade? 10/20. It feels exactly as when I was in my last year of high school with a GPA of 6/20. Even if at the time I knew it was because I wasn't going to class much anymore and I was just neither doing homework nor even care to try anymore during exams, it's still burned in my mind a decade later.

The lowest. 

The failure.

Low.

Insultingly low.

Humiliatingly. Low.

Even if that fucking threshold feels stupidly high for a job that is literally the lowest of the low in public service.

***

Two of us here succeeded. Minerva and another contract employee I don't know. But both Passiflora and I failed. Passiflora, for God's sake. She's nowhere near stupid and still failed. I don't know why, I do fucking hope this isn't racism playing in as she's black, but... why. 

Easy for Minerva though. She used to be in the military. 

But why Passiflora. Why her.

I'd rather be the only one that didn't pass than to know someone I appreciate didn't.

***

When I learned the news, I broke. Dionysus was with me. Passiflora left early, Capella wasn't here this afternoon, and Minerva still is on leave.

Ah. Yeah. I failed it, I said in an almost flat tone.

Ah damn. 

Silence.

...I guess this is...

My voice was breaking as the words were coming out. Frequent thing with me. As soon as I start opening my mouth about whatever's making me cry, 

...Everyone says I have the capacity...

I knew exactly what the next ones would be. That people never saw me clearly. That they believe things about me that aren't true and that sooner or later they'd find out and resent me for not living up to it. 

I stopped myself. He did not reply, just uneasily stood there.

I wrote up an email to my advisor. Then texts to my mom. Head aches. Holding back tears. And then, an email to Hera, which had the other guy in a copy. It was brief, I tried to not make it self-pitying, and I told them I hoped that they wouldn't be disappointed in me.

***

Within minutes, the tears had taken over, again. Theodora was about to go, but she came back to gather her things. She had a talk with Colonel Leo a while earlier and it didn't go well, apparently, because she was bitching about it to Dionysus. 

Hera came to ask me about my email. I was already on the verge of crying, so she asked if I wanted to come over to her office, it would be better to talk there, just the two of us. I accepted. The others were clearly uncomfortable with it anyway. Good that in her new office, there's no Janus. Not that he was a bad office mate to her, but it feels very good having one's own space.

***

Hera closed the door and sat me at her table. I cried, oh Lord. I told her how awful I thought of myself. That I was afraid of disappointing her. That I guess I probably am never doing enough. That I should've died a long time ago and that I don't even know why I'm still here and that I don't even deserve to work in this service. I can't remember all that I said, but Hera be Hera, she was awkward at first.

Oh, Hi'iaka, you don't have the right to tell me that. Because I will go home with those words, what will I do with them? I believe in you, Hi'iaka! If I didn't, I wouldn't have prolongated your contract for four more months...

I did not correct her, or say she wasn't saying it right. Just thought, this is Hera. She's not someone who goes into the abyss and stares at it straight in the face like I do. Hell, to her it was not normal that after the shelf incident, the first thing I told my mom was that I nearly died. 

If my own daughter told me that, I'd be calling all the emergency numbers, all the hospitals, all the firefighters, I'd be going crazy!

Yeah, Hera is a mom. She has two daughters at least, one 22 years old. And she's 48. I jokingly told her she could have been my mother. Of course we joked around on that, but yeah. Age-wise, she definitely could've had me young.

She told me that I would experience plenty of failures in exams during my life. She, herself, has such a background. Started as a B class personnel, passed many of those exams to end up where she is now. She also thinks I deserve a much better job than the one I have now and the one I was passing the exam for. C class. The executants, the lower class of public service.

Thing is, I failed the B one too. I may try again in a while, but... 

***

And what I understood, and what Hera also told me herself, is that she definitely makes a point of being an empathetic superior. I just don't understand what the other jerk was all about with her, saying he "had to go to therapy because of her". I just wonder what he must've done or if it's even real. 

But I got the chance to tell her about a lot of things. After a while, she remained silent, just listening to me, and I let it out. I let out that I didn't believe in psychology anymore. 

You know, the problem I have is that we literally have to pay someone to do what the community is supposed to do: we have to pay money for someone to hear us, care about us, support us, this is... I can't, this isn't something I can do anymore. Analyzing endlessly, too, when what helped me the most was living... and you know... there are people who get worse in therapy. Some just learn to be better at being awful but with fancy words to justify. Manipulative people just get a whole manual with all the necessary vocabulary to do it unpunished. 

She seemed surprised.

Ah yeah... hmm... 

Yeah. They do. They just get worse.

I didn't tell her who I was thinking about. My ex, my father. So many others, too.

And...

...And also... I know someone who's failed an oral exam. She passed the written part. But the oral, she didn't. 

Hopoe.

I couldn't talk about it without breaking down in tears all over again.

What exam was it? 

I told her the name of Hopoe's exam.

I... well. I looked up the results, since we weren't talking anymore by that point. And I saw that she had passed the written essay... but the oral... she failed it... 

I was crying. I don't need to mention her name. But the minute she's in my words, I cry.

I think it affected her a lot. 

Put my head in my hands.

Oh, but you can't carry both her pain and yours, and that of the Earth! You have to carry yours first... you can't always carry others.

You know, I carry mine, always. All on my own.

I had told her, previously, during the conversation, that I was carrying a lot alone, and that some people are dealt shitty cards in life and that was just it.

The star always shines at some point, she said. I do believe yours will. I want it to.

Of course, your typical Hera thing. She wants to do well. 

But I can't deal with that. Not meaning this in an ungrateful way, in fact, I told her... I'm grateful for the space she gave me.

Yeah... I hope. But there are people who can do everything they want, be as good as they want, they are wonderful, they do everything properly, and yet they never reach their goals, ever. They never get granted their wishes. For a reason we don't know, and that we will never know, somehow they never get anything from life, they just keep getting punched in the face. 

Yeah, that's true... some people just aren't so lucky.

Mh-hm. It's just... as I said, if you're dealt a bad hand, there isn't much you can do. 

We spent a while talking. I thanked her. She really does appreciate me a lot, and she's aware that it may take me a while to digest it. I'm always honest about the fact I don't know how to deal with those positive words. It's not that I don't trust her. It's that I don't trust that people are truly seeing me as I am. And that sooner or later, they won't get disappointed or hate me.

But she does believe in me. I'll have to take her at her word. Not that it's easy, but...

...perhaps.

White pearl on silver chain. I could not take my eyes off it. 

She really does want me to come see her in her office though, lol. Always says "if there's anything you can come to me". Damn Hera, are you this lonely?

***

Anyway. I'm tired. Head aches from crying. I'm having a Hinano to drown my sorrows a little.

Later, internet.