Today is liberation day.

Today the last day of checking and tracking my every move as though watching myself through her bitter, hardened blue eyes.  Today is the last day of muting phone conversations steeped in poison and vitriol with loved ones, whose sweetness cuts a welcome, open-aired path through the smog of hostility in which we’re chronically encased.  Today is the last day I force myself to avoid eye contact as we pass each other en route to the copier, to audibly laugh at miserably unfunny jokes in order to keep a semblance of peace.  Today marks the end of hearing her breathe, of sharing the same air, of stifling sneezes to avoid her kneejerk, impassive “bless you” over our cube wall.  No more searing silence when an expectant question is asked of us both.  Never again will I raise my head ever so strategically slightly, a silent ninja, to see if her purse is gone, her chair empty, her screen logged-out, and exhale fully for the first time all day.  Never again will I be lured like a conciliatory sap into exchanging a smile over a shared annoyance and find myself, beyond all reason, thinking we could actually be friends.  And never again will that be shot to hell because I dared to ask her, politely, brightly, desperately, to do her fucking job.

Today, my friends, is the last day with that bitch at work I hate.